"But, I don"t want to lose control!" wailed a client who had come to me with a phobia of flying. When I say "wailed", just talking about flying made her wail. I had only asked "Why does hypnotherapy scare you, which is what I ask any clients who want to ditch their phobia. She did have a wry smile when I pointed this out to her.
Feeling out of control will be a familiar feeling to anyone who has experienced a phobia, so it seems illogical to be concerned about losing controlling while trying to overcome the phobia. Logic, however, plays no part at all in holding on to a phobia, or trying to get rid of it.
I was a life long water phobic and the idea of being in water was terrifying. So many people tried to teach me how to swim, but it was doomed to failure because of my deeply held illogical fear. There was an uncomfortable incident in one (of very many) adult swimming lesson, where the instructor thought I should move on a bit. Granted I was hanging around the shallow end, although my erratic breathing and tightly clutching onto the handrail, should have alerted him to my 'out of control' state.
As he loomed toward me, I brought up my knee and let's just say, he came of worse. At that moment I was out of control and he bore the brunt. There was nothing logical in being concerned about the shallow pool or having an instructor present. Needless to say there were words spoken and suggestions that I should stay away from swimming pools.
I didn't realise then just how powerful a therapy hypnosis can be. All I needed was to recode my thinking and to ditch the phobia.
So how does hypnotherapy work?