What to do about a phobia?

A phobia is an irrational fear that is driven by our emotions, which is why will-power, facts and reassurance tend to have little impact. Of course, this doesn’t stop us trying to intellectually ‘understand it’ so we examine the past and try to remember or figure out how the phobia developed in the belief that a rational understanding will reduce its impact it rarely does, by the way.)

This search for an explanation is quite natural – especially when we don’t know any other way of tackling it.

Opinions about phobias

So first a few opinions - I've called them that rather than 'facts' because they are, of course, not universally accepted facts. They are accepted by most people in the world of NLP and they are supported by my own experience of working as a therapist for 17 years. Yet many, including those therapists who believe that 'curing' a phobia should be a long and very expensive process, would disagree with them.

A phobia is an emotional fearful response which is rarely based on objective facts or reality.
A phobia can happen to anyone – it is not a reflection on one’s strength or character, intelligence, will-power, etc.
A phobia can develop at any age
A phobia can normally be ‘eradicated’ in a few hours, at most...

Self Help for phobias?

Although I am an enthusiastic believer in self help methods for most difficulties I believe self help methods are best used with phobias only as a last resort – when there is no other choice available.

Yes, you can eradicate most phobias on your own but it can be a long, slow process. The best self help method is the “NLP Fast Phobia Fix” but, without a fair bit of NLP training and skill, it is not easy to use by yourself.

Next best is an read more