Alternatives to Fast Phobia Cure in Self-Hypnosis?

Hi all,

I have a question concerning phobia cures for poor visualisers. Are there any effective alternatives to the Fast Phobia Cure out there? I ask this because I find it awkward, if not impossible, to be able to properly dissociate. I would be OK visualising myself in a movie, but to imagine myself watching myself watching myself in the movie is just too nested! There’s also the issue that one is supposed to change the submodalities of the movie – some steps involve looking at a still picture, others in B&W, others with increased brightness, etc, etc.

Isn’t there a simpler way of handling phobias and fears using self-hypnosis? Can anyone point me to such a method, please?

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Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 23, 2009 at 2:16pm

The simpliest way to get round the excessive stages is to focus on the feelings. For any feeling to stay it has to move. If you focus on where the feeling of fear or anxiety starts and how it moves and how it spins back to the start point again, then add a colour to this (whatever colour seems natural or right), then increase that spinning feeling, getting faster and faster, then add in sound (the more senses involved the better) then imagine taking it outside your body so that it is spinning in front of you, then flip it upside down so that it is spinning in a different direction, then add in a calming colour, keep the spinning going faster and faster then imagine pulling this back into your body keeping the spinning going in this new direction and as you do begin to imagine situations that would have made the feeling of fear there and instead just keep that spinning going...then keep imagining a few more situations with that spinning...

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Permalink Reply by Beryl Comar on March 24, 2009 at 12:47am

I love working with phobias - bring up the feeling, regress to ISE, do the inner child work and forgiveness, go thru SSEs and change perception ... standard Elman work see "Hypnotherapy" by Elman and see his case studies.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Hannaby, Ph.D on March 25, 2009 at 1:20pm

Thanks for the reply, Dan. I've finally gotten around to responding. I have seen some reference to this spinning approach before somewhere. Do you have a reference to a text that goes into some detail about this? To be honest, I can't say I've ever considered the feeling of fear as moving and spinning back to the start point again? Is the point of flipping things over and reversing the spin direction simply to 'counter' the fear feeling as it is presently experienced? Is it as simple as that - a kind of inverse action? If so, that makes sense. The more I think about this, the more it is germinating as a possibility for me - please do tell more?

Cheers,
Simon.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Hannaby, Ph.D on March 25, 2009 at 1:27pm

Ooooh - I have this book! Will give it a look over soon enough. What do people feel over this general question: is it possible to do as much in terms of changework in self-hypnosis as in hetero-hypnosis? Assuming of course that the skills of the 'operators' are equal. I appreciate that self-hypno may take longer to achieve the equivalent result, but in principle, ought I to be able to do stuff like regression, inner child work and forgiveness on my own - or is this kind of work only realistic in the hetero- setup?

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Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 25, 2009 at 10:46pm

Hi Simon,

I've not seen it written anywhere to my knowledge (although it's likely to be written somewhere) If anything is static or constant we habituate to it. So if someone wears glasses they habituate to the feel of the glasses and stop noticing them. So the only way for the feeling to stay is for it to be moving (often a churning feeling)

The putting it outside your body part will be creating dissociation (like the fast phobia cure does), then flipping it over, changing it's colour and having it running in this new way is because if all of these changes are made then it won't be running the same process. If for example you ask someone to describe the feeling of fear and they say it starts in their stomach, rises up towards their chest, and spins forwards back to their stomach, and when asked what colour it seems like they say red...then you break state, talk about something else and then get them onto discussing relaxation, where does that feeling start, how does it move, what colour does it seem...it will be different (perhaps spinning in larger circles, or the opposite direction, etc...and perhaps blue or green, etc...) so if you have the person spinning the negative feeling faster and faster (again by them increasing the speed, which also increases the fear, they are doing it so they are in control, rather than just an automatic response), then they move this outside themselves (they are now disassociated from the fear, and observing it), then flipping it over, perhaps turning it blue etc...(they have now changed the submodalities and so will have created a different feeling that they are still disassociated from) then putting this feeling back inside and associating it with memories and situations that used to create fear, now they are having a new emotion associated with them instead...

From the many times I've used this it seems very quick and effective regardless of the client thinking it will or will not work..

Alternatively you could do what Erickson did when he separated the person from the fear, asking the person to stand up out of their chair leaving the fear behind and move to another chair, and that the fear will always remain in that chair...

Again I've done variations of this like have someone stand in a corner of a room and go through this process, leaving the fear in the corner of the room...

Attached is a generic phobia cure track that includes a version of the fast phobia cure and spinning technique, with the music etc made specifically for this track to emphasis what is going on for the client...

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