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Overcoming Phobias--Overcoming Fear
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Coral Calcium Link to this site |
Overcoming Phobias--Overcoming Fear
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Overcome Phobias
The cause of all
types of phobias:
Many phobias are caused by a sensitizing
experience in which the individual has a near mishap. Example, one client
bit into a steak and got stuck with a needle that somehow was left in the
steak. From that day on he had a fear of eating meat. The thought of eating
meat made him gag.
Many of us as youngsters had a frightening experience with getting an inoculation and from that time forth were phobic with needles.
Many
of us nearly lost our balance while climbing developed a fear of heights or
bridges.
Whenever our intelligent brain perceives a threat to our existence, it
prepares us to fight or run--the fight/flight. This is normal and healthy.
However, our conscious mind gets involved and begins to wonder what would
happen if we fell while climbing, swallowed the needle in the steak, or felt
a lot of pain while getting an inoculation and before you know it, the
thought, conscious or unconscious brings on the fear response.
Another cause of phobias is what I call "catching a suggestion," i.e., someone tells of a hear mishap or of someone else's mishap which caused extreme hurt or loss of life. When you find yourself in a similar situation you remember the mishap and begin to wonder how it could happen to you. Before you know it, because of your over concern or worry, you create a near mishap yourself and end up giving birth to a phobia. A scary movie can have the same affect.
Sometimes, some fears are very much like superstition in which case, they generally are a compulsion and provide the value of secondary gain, i.e. as long as the person is fighting the phobia, he/she doesn't have to deal with other disappointments in life. In this case, the phobia is an excuse for lack of social, financial, professional success and so on. Once this is verified, the treatment is shifted to he methods of learning to overcome anxiety.
The common Thread:
All phobias are irrational. In other words, if we reduce the fear to simple words, it means that the phobic is interrupting the object of the fears as a threat to his/her life. In other words, we never hear of a bridge capturing someone and killing them, or an airplane attacking its passengers, or a needle planting itself in a steak to kill the person dinning on the steak, or the closet squeezing one to death..,
Treatment of all types of phobias--the phobia clinic.
The most effective approach to dealing with phobias is to seek medical help and counseling simultaneously. Physicians generally prescribe something like valium, zanex, or zolof.
Let's not get confused. We're
not just talking about simple butterflies in the tummy, this is the kind of
anxiety that completely debilitates the sufferer. It forces him/her to pass
up promotions at work because the promotion, for instance, may involve
traveling over a bridge which is a no--no. There are over 100
different recognized phobias. Psychologist often treat them with
psychotherapy or flooding (exposing the client direct to the fear producing
stimulus, i.e. throwing the person who is afraid of water into a swimming
pool; hypnotists with age regression; psychiatrists with meds. And
then there's those--perhaps in the same profession as those mentioned
above--who move in a productive direction utilizing a form of desensitization.
First it's important to have the person suffering from the phobia/s
change the name of it from phobia
to a problem--problems have solutions. Then a hierarchy is established, i.e.
a list of ten steps where the person accesses the level of anxiety
associated with each step from a place where he/she is perfectly relaxed to
where he/she feels 100% anxiety.
Next, the client through a cognitive shift learns how to shift from feeling like he/she is his/her own worst enemy to her/his best friend. He/she gains a full comprehension of the fear (fight/flight) response so it can work for him/her instead of against him/her.
Then a variation of Wolpe's desensitization technique is used. First the individual is relaxed and instructed to remember a place or time in their life where they felt peaceful and tranquil. This is their zero. It's useful, although not necessary to have a galvanic skin response (GSR) attached to the fingers of the individual which measures degree of activation of the sympathetic nervous system. The individual is then instructed to imagine him/herself doing the first step in the hierarchy. In other words if one is afraid of flying in an airplane, the the first image might be of calling to order the tickets. Suggestions are given to have the tranquility swamp out the activation so that the tranquility spreads to the image of ordering tickets. This is successively done with each step in the hierarchy until the fear is eradicated.
The individual then is to follow through step by step with booking the ticket, driving to the airport, getting on the plane and so on.
Before he/she knows it, he/she is in the middle of the flight with the ability of effectively dealing with any apprehension.
There is no need to suffer from phobias in today's world.
Fear of public
speaking and social
anxieties are also phobic reactions. Even though the technique is very
similar, both of these phobias warrant their own programs.
Other Related Programs:
Overcome
Anxiety/Disappointment
©Copyright 2003 Stress Management Institute, Middletown, NJ all rights reserved.
