Hypnotherapy for agoraphobia – It works!

Agoraphobia hypnosis Kent…..

It’s really interesting how major events can impact our lives and play out in ways we don’t expect. Last week a client was referred to me by her Doctor for hypnotherapy for agoraphobia. The lady was finding it increasingly difficult to go outdoors. She was suffering from agoraphobia, although she was not what I call a classic agoraphobic. She had various fears about going outdoors  and although she was forcing herself to go outdoors every day , she was becoming more and more anxious about going outside , and she was finding more and more things that she was adding to her fear of being outside .

She came to me for help as it was really starting to impact her life and she did not want to end up being confined to her house, which is where she saw herself in the not too distant future.

The funny thing about phobias is that they can attack at any time, without warning and for seemingly no reason.

The person with the phobia can always rationalise to themselves that their behaviour is not normal but no matter how hard they rationalise their fears they just cannot overcome the fear that they feel for no apparent reason.

Often agoraphobia can be a product of severe stress. If a person experiences stress in relation to a person, place or situation, the stress may materialise as a phobia  about some other object, place or situation, in other words stress manifests itself in another form, and in agoraphobia ,the irrational fear of going outdoors.

Usually, in this kind of stress based fear, the person selects something for the phobia that can easily be avoided, rather than fearing the true stimulus, which may be difficult or impossible to avoid.  Traumatic events such as bereavement can very often contribute to the development of agoraphobia, and in this was certainly the case with my client.

The good news about agoraphobia is that people that suffer from agoraphobia are very good candidates for hypnosis as they are already proficient in negative rehearsal.

Which basically means they are playing out their day and how they expect their anxiety of whatever it is they fear to affect them.

Agoraphobics start to fear the fear. So they not only have the fear of going out , they start to fear the panic attacks that they experience when they go out , they start to fear how they know going out makes them feel. It becomes a self perpetuating cycle.

One of the things I do with my clients that are suffering from agoraphobia is teach them how to revert from negative rehearsal to positive rehearsal.*

Usually somebody that is suffering from agoraphobia will also suffer from panic attacks, so it is very important to teach a client to breath.

When a person is suffering from anxiety their breathing speeds up, each breath is too shallow. This causes quicker elimination of CO2 in the blood which results in low levels of CO2. This serves to increase anxiety and fear, and once these feelings of fear arise, the fight or flight response is activated and repeated.  Getting a client to control their breathing helps restore and maintain CO2 levels and thus helps to reverse the stress cycle.

There is always some form of catalyst or trauma at the root of agoraphobia, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a major trauma, it could be something as simple as even falling off a bike as a child.

Then we you experience a traumatic event such as a bereavement, the fear and anxiety you are experiencing in the present attaches itself to that earlier event which then develops into agoraphobia. You CAN avoid going outside, but you CANT do anything about bereavement. So your anxiety is being channelled into something you can avoid.

Hypnotherapy for agoraphobia – how can you help me overcome my fear of going outside?

The good news is, to treat agoraphobia, you do not always need to know what the initial trauma was, you do not need to go digging about in the past, and you do not need to relive any past or present trauma.

Obviously there are always exceptions to this, and we would use a variety of techniques to deal with very severe trauma and deep seated phobias, but for most people cognitive behavioural techniques which deal in the here and now are very effective in dealing with agoraphobia.*

I use modern  de-sensitising techniques to help you release your fear and anxiety.*

If you have a fear of going outside, a fear of open spaces, a fear of weather, a fear of walking up or down hills, or any type of fear related to being outside, then why not try my agoraphobia programme Kent?

The programme is four to six sessions.  A minimum of four sessions is always needed to treat a phobia, but I always start with four and evaluate how the client is progressing after four. Very often four sessions are sufficient but if further sessions are required these are booked on a session by session basis.

If you suffer from agoraphobia, fear of going outside, fear of weather, or fear of anything related to being outside , then hypnotherapy for agoraphobia may be the answer you are looking for to help you with your problem.

Please give me a call on 01634 307030 or email me on enquiries@dohypnosiskent.co.uk to book your hypnotherapy for agoraphobia sessions.

Please note results may vary from person to person. There are never guarantees when undergoing any form of therapy and for this reason we do not offer any guarantees for any of our hypnotherapy services. *