What can cause a phobia and what are the symptoms?
Phobias can be caused in childhood from a traumatizing environment, or being around someone who has a phobia. If for some reason we don’t understand a trauma, we instead associate it with the location or an object that was part of the experience, and we become afraid of that location or object. A common example is aerophobia - phobia of flying - which is often the result of a drop in blood sugar during take-off, causing misunderstood trauma. This can easily happen if a person hasn’t eaten for about 4 hours before their flight because they were busy packing and getting to the airport, so there’s plenty of stress and adrenaline, and maybe they had a coffee waiting to board, so caffeine on an empty stomach. When the plane takes off their nervous system reacts to the acceleration and their blood sugar drops, they feel faint and dizzy, heart racing, and that feeling of being out of control in a public place traumatizes them. In that state, they don’t consider that their symptoms indicate low blood sugar, so they associate the initial trauma with the airplane. After that, anything to do with flying triggers their phobia.
The primary symptom of a phobia is anxiety - fear - which is triggered by anything that reminds the person of the environment or object they’ve associated with the initial trauma. In this example, knowing they have to get on a plane is the trigger. They get anticipatory anxiety and fear the moment they start planning their trip: dry mouth, sweating, increased heart rate, trembling, bit nauseous, feeling faint… And it gets worse the closer they get to having to fly. Many people don’t feel like they can tell anyone, least of all their boss, and maybe not even their partner. If your trigger is an ordinary object, that can be very hard to talk about. Feeling embarrassed about a phobia means that either you force yourself and pretend it’s okay in situations that make you uncomfortable, or you make elaborate plans to avoid trigger situations - you turn down opportunities, and organize your life around avoidance. In addition to the phobia, the initial trauma also causes grief resulting from the emotional loss of being traumatized. The phobia and the grief are parallel responses to the trauma, and grief has it’s own symptoms: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.
How does hypnotherapy help with treating phobias?
Phobias should never be treated head-on using exposure therapy (facing your fear) because you cannot face a phobia, you can only face the trigger - which triggers the phobia. The trigger is a great example of F.E.A.R. - False Evidence Appearing Real, because the trigger is not the real trauma, it’s just an association. Hypnotherapy can help with: Dream Therapy to reveal the initial trauma and provide subconscious feedback on your progress; Systematic Desensitization to reprogram the trigger and assign it a different association; and Grief Therapy to help you process the emotional loss from the initial trauma. Systematic Desensitization is a phobia treatment developed by J. Wolpe and others, in which the person is trained in various relaxation techniques until they become confident and proficient in sustaining a deep state of relaxation. Only then, is the actual desensitization gradually applied to the trigger, which is already weakened by the principle of reciprocal inhibition - a person cannot be relaxed and anxious at the same time. Through this process, your subconscious mind learns to associate the trigger with deep relaxation instead of anxiety, thereby reprogramming it and allowing you to recover from the phobia.
During the course of your treatment, your dreams will contain vital information that will help identify the initial trauma which is the cause of your phobia. Hypnotherapy is essentially a conversation between your conscious and subconscious mind. With your permission, I talk to your subconscious in hypnosis, and your subconscious then communicates back to you by dreaming. Studies show dreaming is vital for mental health — everyone dreams, although most people don’t remember them. If you don’t remember your dreams, that’s simply a habit that can be developed over a few weeks. You may remember a dream about the initial trauma, or you may have a series of elusive dreams about emotional memories of not being in control - both are useful because any dream about trauma provides valuable information that we can use in grief therapy. I use the Kubler-Ross 5 Stages model to help you navigate through grief, writing affirmations to help you move into the Acceptance stage or ‘Letting Go’, and recover from the phobia. Affirmation soundtracks are tremendously helpful in treating a phobia as they remind you of your bargain - the terms on which you agree to live and thrive.
What happens in a session for treating phobias with Andrew?
Sessions are between one and two hours depending on your booking preference. We begin with a conversation — around 20 - 30 minutes in an hour session — where we talk about what triggers your phobia, how it’s affecting your daily life, any situations you’re avoiding, and any dreams you remember since your last session. This helps me compile your desensitization script and anxiety hierarchy, and also gives us a chance to create affirmations to help you navigate through the grief process. Your affirmations will refer directly to positive dreams or experiences that you’ve had, and suggest that traumas in your past should not define who you are now, and that it’s okay to let go of the past and be whoever you want to be.
The second part of the session is 30 - 40 minutes if the session is an hour, and is dedicated to Systematic Desensitization in hypnosis. Hypnosis usually takes twenty to thirty minutes. You do this in a comfortable space at home, where you can relax and listen to the psychoacoustic soundtrack and my voice over your headphones, with the video allowing me to observe your subconscious reactions in your body language and breathing pattern. You can communicate with me at any time but most people don’t feel they need to. I will guide you into hypnosis to reach a relaxed day-dreaming state, and then begin the training for confidence in relaxation by teaching you how to meditate - a skill which anyone can learn, of sustaining calm authority in your mind, no matter what. When practiced in hypnosis, the combination provides the ideal relaxing environment for Wolpe’s treatment. Relaxation training continues until you become proficient in the technique during various scenarios (not related to your phobia) presented to you in hypnosis. When you are ready, we start gradually desensitizing the trigger to render it harmless. After 20 minutes, I gently bring you out and we discuss your experiences.
How many sessions will you need to overcome a phobia?
My approach has two distinct phases - Phase 1: Dream therapy and learning to meditate; Phase 2: Systematic Desensitization and grief therapy. Some people develop their ability to meditate in 3-4 sessions. Desensitization then happens in parallel with grief therapy, which usually requires 9-12 sessions. Phobias are often more complex than they first appear, so it’s difficult to predict an accurate timeline. The trigger can be so deeply ingrained that it can take weeks even to be able to relax into hypnosis and get through the layers of subconscious defenses. The desensitization treatment is developmental - you work through layers of subconscious reactions from your dreams. It’s a classic onion metaphor, resolving deeper and deeper layers as your subconscious re-associates your trigger with a neutral or positive reaction, and deals with the initial trauma in your own unique way. This approach means the timeline is genuinely individual.
Several factors play into prolonging the timeline - If you don’t remember your dreams, developing dream recall takes a few weeks - while using the supporting soundtracks will reduce the number of sessions you need, but the biggest factor is the complexity of your defenses around the trigger. When a trauma occurs and the subconscious associates an environment or object, or animal as a trigger, it places that trigger inside a set of defenses to protect it. If the trigger is activated multiple times - especially against your will - your subconscious buries it deeper under stronger defenses such as denial, anger, or depression. A repeated trauma or a phobia rooted in childhood can take months to emerge, adding considerable time to your treatment. Your subconscious will require time, to give you permission and trust you to work on that “high security” level, before it allows you to reprogram your trigger.
Is hypnotherapy effective for treating phobias?
Yes, hypnotherapy is highly effective for treating phobias—in fact, phobias are one of the best-researched applications of hypnotherapy. The desensitization technique developed by J. Wolpe and others has been extensively studied and validated, with systematic reviews consistently showing strong effectiveness for phobic responses. What’s particularly impressive is that single-session treatment protocols exist for certain phobias, demonstrating just how powerful this approach can be — though more complex or long-standing phobias typically benefit from the 3-6 session range we discussed. Research shows high success rates across different types of phobias: specific phobias, situational phobias like flying or enclosed spaces, and even more complex anxiety-related phobias. The reason hypnotherapy works so well for phobias is that it addresses the the subconscious misplaced association rather than just managing symptoms or forcing you to endure the trigger. Studies document rapid resolution in most cases, with the phobic response reducing to neutral or mild discomfort within a handful of sessions.
The Kubler-Ross grief model integration distinguishes my approach — it addresses both the phobic response and the underlying trauma simultaneously. Desensitization happens through guided visualization in hypnosis, where your subconscious learns to re-associate the trigger with deep relaxation instead of anxiety. This retrains your neural pathways safely without forcing physical confrontation. Dream therapy reveals the initial trauma when you’re ready to process it, and grief work releases the emotional loss buried alongside the phobia. Online sessions are often more effective for phobia work because you’re already in your safe, comfortable space where deep relaxation comes naturally — the therapeutic process happens entirely in your mind, so physical location is irrelevant.
What changes can you expect as your phobia resolves?
The first change you’ll notice is that your meditations become easier. You still have thoughts, but you start remembering to drop them, and that starts feeling really good. You feel like your mind is resting in those moments after you drop a thought - and those moments get longer the more you practice. You start noticing more control over your general stress levels in day-to-day situations and feeling more confident as your affirmations and session work start to empower you subconsciously. You’ll also notice a change in your dreams and remember them more clearly - they become more positive and empowering, indicating that your subconscious is processing the initial trauma and responding to the consistent message that your phobia is just an association: False Evidence Appearing Real.
Starting the desensitization work is a satisfying breakthrough and it’s a great milestone confirming that you are making progress, but the most important breakthrough is remembering the initial trauma. This may sound like something you’d rather avoid, so let me re-assure you: Your subconscious mind will never let you remember anything that you’re not ready to deal with. I don’t use force, that’s why dream therapy is so important — it allows the initial trauma to surface only when you feel safe and strong enough to deal with it. In fact, what allows you to break through is that you already have so much support from your meditation and affirmation work. Grief therapy is the bottom layer of your treatment - psychological bed-rock. Finally coming to terms with that trauma feels like unclogging the bottom of the dam and letting the river flow again.
Would you like to talk to Andrew about treating phobias?
Living with a phobia can feel isolating and the trigger can be embarrassing. If you’re avoiding situations and turning down opportunities, or organizing your life around a fear you can’t explain, you don’t have to keep doing that alone. The symptoms I’ve described here are common, but they’re not exhaustive — if you don’t relate to everything mentioned, that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to help. If you have any questions about symptoms I haven’t addressed, or you’re simply curious whether hypnotherapy might work for your specific situation, we can talk. I have a free 15-minute consultation — no obligation just a conversation to see if we can work together. If you like, I’m ready to listen.