Explaining how fears and phobias are created

Hypnosis successfully treats fears and phobias, a phobia is an irrational fear that has been blown out of all proportion the sufferer often realises they are acting irrational and out of control especially after the event but their actions are driven subconsciously and totally out of their control. The sufferer is unable to think logically as their subconscious mind takes over, working as a protective mechanism protecting them from the trauma it believes lies in the source of the phobia.

A few common phobias

Natural fear
Being frightened when we are in certain situations is a natural response for instance if you are frightened while a passenger in a car that it is being driven extremely fast or standing on the edge of the roof of a high rise building that has no perimeter wall. This is our natural protection mechanism (self-preservation) taking over warning us of the imminent danger wanting us to remove ourselves from the current situation.

Now what is not a natural fear is someone that is scared of spiders, worms, open spaces, public speaking, using the toilet in front of others or even the fear of buttons just to name a few. These situations do not impose a life threat, non the less some people find that when faced with these situations their natural self-preservation takes over. Once this happens they have one goal one thing on their mind, they will do anything to get away (fight or flight) and won't rest or calm down until they are once again safe (in their eyes) no one can persuade this person otherwise they are not acting rationally. This fear has now become a phobia.

Once the danger has passed the sufferer may even reflect back and agree they acted irrationally maybe even agreeing they where stupid. however this will not change the way they act if again the same circumstances arise.

So how are phobias created?
A phobia is created in two ways direct or indirect stimuli, both will lead to a symptom being formed through blocked emotions but have big differences in their formation.

The first is through direct stimuli which is the easiest to explain. It is created when we are subjected to a frightening event usually when we are young as our mind is emotionally immature and fragile. This traumatic event creates an emotion that stays linked to the event even when we forget the initial experience the emotion is stored locked away but surfaces once the trigger is activated.


The second cause of phobias is the indirect stimuli this has a more complex explanation it is caused by an anxiety build up known as free floating anxiety. This anxiety generally starts when we are young and is compounded as we grow up gathering strength this unconscious anxiety is not linked to a memory as the previous example. Sure enough this anxiety gets too strong for us to deal with, it needs to be released for our psyche to gain control, it is searching for the cause and needs a reason why you are feeling this way. BANG finally it finds its own reason and creates its own association to use as a trigger.


finding the root cause of the problem
Most hypnotherapist have been trained in suggestion therapy calling on additional therapies like addition of NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) or TFT (Thought field therapy). These therapies help remove the symptom but have little regard for the underlying root cause of the phobia which will have a buried emotion associated with it. This will leave the person open to the creation of another phobia or maybe a different type of nervous condition all together.

Analytical-hypnotherapy uncovers and eliminates the buried emotion removing the root cause once and for all.

Free floating anxiety
If only the symptom is removed leaving behind the anxiety associated with it the root cause of the original problem has not been removed. Think of it as a a garden weed if you pull the weed out everything seems ok on the surface but if the root has not been removed the weed will find its way once again to the surface.