In our previous blog, we looked at how hypnotherapy can overcome simple phobias as well as how simple phobias differ from complex ones. We’ll now take a closer look at complex phobias, and how solution focused hypnotherapy techniques can help you manage these, too.
What Is A Complex Phobia?
As we know, a single or simple phobia is triggered by a specific object or situation (dogs, flying, dentists). The main way a complex phobia differs from a simple phobia is that it doesn’t need a trigger.
As an example, let’s look at a common simple phobia, a fear of spiders. An arachnophobe isn’t going to worry about spiders until they see one (or maybe enter a spidery location, like a garden shed). That’s how a simple phobia typically works: there’s a trigger. Someone with a complex phobia doesn’t need a trigger to experience anxiety about their phobia. It’s like being arachnophobic, but thinking about spiders a lot of the time.
Two of the most common social phobias are agoraphobia and social phobia. Agoraphobia is often misrepresented as the “opposite to claustrophobia”, a fear of large open spaces. Actually, it’s more complicated than that, and is a fear of a range of spaces and situations (and claustrophobia is a type of agoraphobia). The underlying fear is often of the situation triggering a panic attack, which is what makes leaving a safe space (usually home) so difficult.
A person who struggles with social phobia will also worry about leaving their safe environment. They might catastrophise a situation that puts them into uncomfortable contact with people, from going to work to having to use public transport, with an underlying fear of being judged by everyone they meet. Feelings can range from discomfort to full-blown panic attack, and it can be a very difficult phobia to live with. Social phobia is also called social anxiety disorder. Hypnotherapy for Social Anxiety
Is A Complex Phobia More Serious Than A Simple Phobia?
Complex phobias are more life-limiting than simple phobias: a fear of spiders is unpleasant but is unlikely to derail your career or affect your wellbeing. Unlike single phobias which tend to become more manageable as we mature, complex phobias often develop during adolescence or adulthood, and rarely become manageable without intervention.
One of the distinctive features of a complex phobia is how anxious thoughts fan out and develop from the original fear. So, an initial fear of travelling by train in case you feel trapped can extend to fears of crowds, of eating in public, of using the lavatory, of commuting and by extension, of work. Having a complex phobia involves a lot of catastrophising and is emotionally exhausting.
How Can Hypnotherapy Help With Complex Phobias?
Hypnotherapy is an effective way of helping people overcome complex phobias. You can stop those unhelpful thoughts and associations. We follow a similar pathway to that we take for simple phobia therapy; however, it does take longer than the three sessions we usually allow for single phobias. This is because we are also managing general anxieties.
What Are The Hypnotherapy Techniques For Phobias?
We start our programme with a session of deep relaxation. For many people, this is the first time they’ve experienced hypnosis. During this initial session, we discuss the phobia and how we want to move forward. For someone with social phobia, the outcome could be managing to have a job outside the home, or to start dining out with friends again.
As with simple phobia therapy, we move on to the Rewind technique, which was originally developed to “unstick” traumatic memories in patients with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). When my client is in a state of deep relaxation and in their emotional “happy place”, I ask them to visualise a television. They then watch themselves watching the TV screen, which creates a mental dissociation from the phobia. I then ask them to “rewind” and “fast forward” the image on the TV, which deepens the dissociation.
The next phase involves creating a false memory. This may sound a little strange, but bear with me. We talk about what the ideal outcome is for my client. For an agoraphobic person, this could be “I would like to shop in a large supermarket”. This outcome helps us to create an ideal scenario, of the individual having a lovely time choosing their favourite foods then going home again, happily.
Solution focused hypnotherapy techniques enable us to plant this scenario in the person’s mind while their brain is receptive. When the brain is under hypnosis, it has no idea whether this happy-shopper scenario is a real or planted memory, so it simply accepts it. My client now has a positive supermarket scenario in their memory, which their brain will refer back to when needed.
So, we follow much the same path for both types of phobia; however a complex phobia requires more sessions to treat, as we’re having to manage more fears.
How Do You Treat Complex Phobias That Involve Social And Environmental Anxieties?
And this is a very good question: how do we begin to treat phobias that involve a fear of leaving the home and/or interacting with other people? Well, thanks to increasingly accessible online technology, I now meet many of my clients over communication platforms like Zoom or MS Teams. This approach takes a lot of the stress out of attending a meeting, and makes sure that my clients always feel safe. Hypnotherapy is just as effective carried out remotely. How does Hypnotherapy work over Zoom?
Hypnotherapy For Complex And Simple Phobias With Great Minds Clinic
Are you struggling with a phobia and want some help to manage it? Solution focused hypnotherapy is a really effective way to treat both simple and complex phobias. If you want to find out more, please drop me a line and we’ll take it from there.
