Treatment for Phobias

It's estimated that over 30% of the UK population has a fairly serious phobia. The top places are usually filled by animal phobias (such as fear of spiders); fears around public speaking (performance & social phobias) and fears around death itself. Abnormal fears are very common, and many people have panic attacks at some stage in their lives, quite commonly triggered by their phobia. There is little that conventional medical science can do for your irrational fear, other than prescribing an antidepressant drug.

If you have a debilitating phobia, you're suffering needlessly. Modern treatments mean you can stop being a prisoner in your own home, shying away from social situations, missing out on promotions and see your true merit and potential be recognised.

Despite the intense distress and impact they have on your life, phobias can often be very easy to treat, with most treatable in just one session, especially with hypnotherapy. In fact, hypnotherapy is particularly effective and we are now able to do in just half a session what tended to take many weeks of graded exposure in the hope of a gradual de-sensitisation.

You could be cured in an hour and a half!

Hypnotherapy for Phobia Treatment

Over the years I have seen thousands of clients for phobias and in my experience a good 80% can be resolved in just one session. With the remaining 20% or so, there is the presence of additional factors to contend with. For instance working with social phobia, some people develop it as a result of one or two really bad experiences that created an aversion to future social occasions. Others may develop social anxiety due to underlying self-esteem problems, which would also need to be addressed to include some background self-esteem building. Some clients with a emetophobia (vomiting) have a fear of germs (purely because they do not want to contract anything that may make them sick and vomit. Once the fear of vomiting is resolved, the fear of germs clears up as well). Others have a fear of germs connected more to OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) roots, which is a harder condition to treat.

Please note that the severity itself does not always correlate to the number of sessions needed. A straightforward fear of spiders can usually be resolved in one session whether the client has only been phobic for a decade, or 5 decades. It's the same as deleting a file on a computer. You can put it in the bin whether it is a new file or whether you have had it from the start.

One of the most common phobias I treat is selective eating disorders (cibophobia). The thing I like about working with SED is that it is immediately testable. I ask clients to bring in food they could not eat prior to the therapy, and then ask them to taste it afterwards. Many clients have also agreed to have the experience videotaped to inspire others. For some video testimonials or before and after treatment please click on my dedicated youtube channel ( a lot more videos have been posted on the facebook forum 'selective eating disorder'). It's not as easy to tape 'before and after' changes with other phobias. Often we have to go hunting for spiders in the garden, or the client does not want to have their fear made public. However, my highly effective SED protocol is essentially the same one I use for all.

Please note that it does not matter if you have tried hypnotherapy before without success. I have successfully treated many hundreds of clients who have not had success before, but did with me as numerous testimonials will illustrate - for instance on this YouTube clip, my client explains that she had 6 sessions with a famous local radio hypnotherapist with no change, and then proceeds to eat all the prepared food after our session. Many hypnotherapists do not have sufficient breadth of training or experience in knowing what to do and how to do it.

Felix Economakis

Commonly treated phobias and fears

• Animals (zoophobia - dogs, cats, etc)
• Birds / Pigeons (ornithophobia)
• Blood (hemophobia )
• Buttons (koumpounophobia)
• Clowns (coulrophobia )
• Commitment phobia
• Confined spaces (claustrophobia)
• Darkness (achluophobia)
• Fear of Driving
• Fear of Intimacy
• Flying (aviophobia)
• Food (cibophobia)
• Heights (Acrophobia)
• Holes (trypophobia)
• Hospitals (nosocomephobia)
• Needles (aichmophobia)
• Open spaces (agoraphobia)
• Sex (genophobia)
• Social Phobia Spiders (arachnophobia)
• Thunder & lightning / Storms (astraphobia )
• Tube / Trains (siderodromophobia)
• Vomit / Vomiting (emetophobia)