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So I have a huge phobia with house spiders. I am absolutely petrified of them and I know it's silly and I've really tried to fight it. If I know one is in a room, I won't go in there and I become hyper alert. It also impacts my sleep as after an 'encounter' I always wake up in the night apparently fighting one off in my sleep.
I don't want my soon to be here child developing irrational fears of house spiders because of my reaction to them.
Has anyone tried NLP and hypnosis as a way to deal with a phobia? Any successful ways of managing them? And it really is a phobia not just a fear of them.
MsBeej saw a hypnotherapist for a massive needle phobia. Mainly relaxation and visualisation exercises to practice outside the sessions. Took about two sessions to get to the point where she could have a blood test without tears and panic attacks, then another couple to be perfectly fine with them.
As with most of these things, I'm sure it depends on the therapist. But yes, to answer your question, a complete success.
Thanks beej. Was it an online session or face to face? I've found a few online courses with practitioners.
Face to face, in 2006! She's still fine with needles now, which is handy as she's a clinical pharmacist who delivers vaccines to people and needs to be vaccinated herself.
From what I was told about the sessions, online 1-2-1 could work well, again depending on the therapist.
MrsIHN had some hypnotherapy for spider and general creepy-crawly phobia. It's worked well. Face to face stuff.
A friend was massively scared of spiders. A particular problem given she lived in Australia. She went to a course at a zoo where they got her handling spiders. It worked. Last time I was there she happily removed a huntsman from the house. No idea if there’s a similar course in this country…
Has anyone tried NLP and hypnosis as a way to deal with a phobia? Any successful ways of managing them? And it really is a phobia not just a fear of them.
Your amygdala is hyper sensitite to spiders, so you need a method of reprogramming it which normally involves gradually increasing exposure to the source whilst maintaining a state of calm, which can reset the sensitivity level. With things like CBT etc you can work on this to some extent eg the thought of spiders etc, but I would have thought an exposure course at a zoo etc might work better as you can actually test it for real. Although too much too soon and it won't work, all down to the individual.
One thing you could try yourself is learn the 7-11 breathing technique which de-stresses yourself very quickly and try that next time you see a spider.
https://studentspace.org.uk/wellbeing/7-11-breathing-exercise
Very simply, breathing in heightens your anxiety, breathing out calms it. So if you can get into a rhythm where you breathe out slower than you breathe in, it very quickly calms you. Sounds a bit new age bollocks but it works really well.