“Fight or Flight”

When confronted with a dangerous situation, our in-built Fight or Flight mechanism kicks in and (provided we act intuitively) survival is taken care of. That’s what happens on a primitive and autonomic level – but fears and phobias are many miles from the primitive, and for each of us (and yes we all have them) they are constructed from the way we represent the world to ourselves.

We all have fears. They’re a normal part of living. They help get us out of harms way. We feel fearful when we believe we do not have the ability to cope with something. This fear may be grounded in reality, as when we fear being knocked down by a car when trying to cross a busy road. Or the fear may be irrational as when we fear a tiny harmless spider. Many of our fears are a mix of reality and misinterpretation of our ability to cope, based upon our perception of the world.

The reality

For some of us, fears and phobias blight our lives – cause panic attack – lead to intense emotional pain – are a source of ever increasing embarrassment – and often make us feel so abnormal that our confidence and self-esteem are drained away just thinking about certain situations.

Where has this fear come from?

Experience

Lets rationalize our perceptive processes…..throughout our life we are constantly updating our store of knowledge that helps us to identify objects, sounds and sensations. This starts from the cradle (feeding impulse, fright response) and builds through our experiences. As we grow older the huge amount of information stored in our memory continues to increase, and this adds to or reinforces all our points of reference, all our perceptions.

Our fears – rational or otherwise – are programmed using these perceptions, this bank of data….so when the perceptions are built upon bad experiences, uncomfortable sensations, frightening images, etc etc, they will make us judge accordingly whether we engage or avoid – fight or flight. We might find the physiological symptoms of fight or flight being manifested - rush of adrenaline, increased heartrate and blood pressure, increased but shallower breathing, dry mouth, sweaty palms ….and then the panic might set in. The feeling of “I’m the rabbit in the headlights….must get out, must get away”.

Modelling

Sometimes our perceptions are modeled from our parents in equally irrational ways. I knew a little girl whose father was often heard to say “Don’t like dogs”. In her reality this parental dislike was translated into fear and she would hide away from dogs in the street or park, cross the road, or walk the other way.

Imagery

I myself had terrible sinus problems when I was young – my great aunt (a nurse and therefore very credible especially to a young person) would always say “that child needs his adenoids taking out”. Now to a child any operation will be painful and so these frightening images and sensations were embedded along with experiencing the sinus problems, which made me miserable for many years…but that was better than the pain of going under the knife. Even now I feel uneasy at the mention of the word "adenoids". Thanks Auntie!

Tackling the issues

Tackling fears and phobias is done by reprogramming the experiential response. It was programmed in the first place so it can be re-programmed, using reframing and other time-line and NLP techniques, distraction techniques, and hypnosis. Hypnotic interventions are usually the final link in the chain, embedding affirmations and building the client's confidence and self-esteem. Often successful intervention for one particular area of concern can actually release certain presenting symptoms for another. I cured a spider phobia for a client who discovered some months later that her fear of wasps had also gone as well – added value indeed!

Peter Wright Hypnotherapy

Online and throughout South and West England