Phobias
Keep You Safe
A
phobia is defined as an irrational fear. There are hundreds
of them.
Arachnophobia
- fear of spiders
Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter sticking
to the roof of the mouth
Caligynephobia - fear of beautiful women
Hippopotomonstrosesquippeddaliophobia - fear of long
words
Ithyphallophobia - fear of seeing an erect penis
Placophobia - fear of tombstones
Trichopathophobia - fear of hair
Triskadekaphobia - fear of the number thirteen
Xerophobia - fear of dryness
Zemmiphobia - fear of the great mole rat
…to
pick out just a handful of mostly little known phobias.
Phobias
keep you safe. That's an odd claim to make. Anyone who suffers
from a phobia of something they can't avoid knows how disabling
phobias are. And experiencing a terror of an object or circumstance
that others don't have any problem with is likely to make
life uncomfortable at the very least. But let's have a look
at this whole phobia issue.
Snakes,
spiders, and needles are very common phobias. Even chimpanzees
suffer from snake phobia. It keeps them safe. Snakes can be
lethal. But chimpanzees even go ape at a piece of hosepipe
that looks like a snake lying on the ground. So being frightened
of snakes makes more sense than not being frightened of snakes.
Spiders too can be poisonous, so it makes sense to give them
a wide berth too. Needles hurt so why not want to avoid having
someone stick one in you and either suck blood out, or pump
something in.
Fear
of the dark. Well you can't see if there's any danger
in the dark and in the dark danger (bear, wolf, lion, hyena,
plague infested rat) has a better chance of getting up close
to you. So it makes sense to want to keep a light on (have
a fire burning) all night.
So
you can see already that some phobias might have origins in
our evolutionary past. And panicking or screaming or generally
making a fuss would be of benefit to the whole tribal group
alerting them of danger in much the way that one or two individuals
in a flock or a herd will give an alarm call when they spot
a predator on the prowl.
The
only problem is that with a phobia, the reaction has gotten
a little out of hand. The scale of it has gone beyond what
is necessary, that's all.
But
then there are the agoraphobics and social phobics. Phobias
like these actually make a person's world very small and very
frightening. But if you feel uncertain of yourself and have
low self-esteem then the phobia provides a legitimate reason
to avoid being out and having to interact with others. So
the phobia, uncomfortable though it is, actually has some
benefits.
The
problem is, benefits or not, that when you are confronted
with the thing that terrifies you, when you have to go on
holiday and spend several hours trapped in an aeroplane convinced
you are going to die, and then spend a fortnight looking forward
to the terror of the return, you experience a very real Hell.
Whatever the phobia is, when it happens, all sense goes out
of the window and life becomes something that you'd readily
give up rather than face that thing that frightens you.
This
is a serious problem. Anything that debilitating, anything
that has that much power to destroy the rational intelligence
of a healthy mind is something to be treated with respect
and with all seriousness.
So
what's the difference between a phobia and a fear. I've handled
snakes and enjoyed it, they are amazing creatures. But hand
me a cobra and I'd back away with some trepidation. I don't
have a problem with harmless spiders crawling on me, but I'd
be seriously panicked if a black widow was crawling up my
arm. This is a normal healthy, sensible reaction. Panicking
because you are told there is a snake in a bag in the next
room isn't. Panicking because you bring an image of a spider
into your mind is abnormal.
A
phobia fills your mind and there is nothing there but a desire
to be away from the source of the phobia. Thinking about the
object of the phobia brings on symptoms almost identical to
their actual physical presence. Often when phobias are treated
the sufferer is asked to score the severity on a scale of
1 to 10, where ten is the highest level of terror they can
imagine and 1 is feeling just ever so slightly uncomfortable.
If the score isn't 8 or above, then there is a strong likelihood
that there is no phobia. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem,
but it does mean the treatment could be different. Most people
can handle fears up to level 7, above that it takes over the
mind completely.
But
it is all in the mind.
That's
why a phobia is one of the easiest problems for a hypnotherapist
to fix. I'll tell you quickly one of the 'tricks' we use to
scramble up a phobic image. It's generally known as the five-minute
phobia cure. Let's say arachnophobia, a fear of spiders, is
the problem. The sufferer is asked to picture a spider in
their mind and then put a funny hat on it, say a clown's hat
with a big bobble on the top. Then you could put bright yellow
Wellington boots on each of its eight legs, and maybe give
it a big red nose. And you play around with the image until
you see a smile or a laugh. It's just a question of finding
the right elements that trigger a humorous response. You can't
laugh and be frightened simultaneously.
What
this does is interfere with the thought pathways that lead
to a fear response when an image of a spider is encountered
(imagined or real), so the neurons that used to fire so readily
on presentation of that image can't do so, or can't do so
without other neurons also firing that lead to a relaxation
response. The more scrambled and the more humorous you can
make the image, the more powerful the 'cure'.
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