What makes overcoming fears so difficult?
Psychologists generally define fear as an adaptive, primal emotion that arises in response to an immediate threat. It’s a survival mechanism designed to alert us to the presence of danger and mobilize our bodies to respond. What makes overcoming fears so difficult is that they can remain long after the threat has passed, and they’re complicated by the fact that the threat can be non-physical: fear of failure means procrastinating about projects and opportunities; fear of rejection keeps us away from people and intimate relationships; fear of judgment creates people-pleasing and hiding our true value; fear of change holds us in bad situations because the unknown feels more dangerous than the familiar; fear of success leads to self-sabotage just when things start going well. Most fears are established in childhood - we didn’t know very much so we tended to be more fearful; our reasoning wasn’t developed so we believed others who told us we’re not good at something, when we actually had potential to be good at it. Fear may also develop from trauma, potentially causing unresolved grief - denial, anger, or depression - which makes the fear even harder to face.
Fear triggers the “fight or flight” response that lives in the subconscious mind, which makes up 90 to 95 percent of our mental processing. Trying to overcome fear with willpower alone is exhausting because you’re only using 5 to 10 percent of your mind. Just thinking about your fear can activate it, making your heart race, your mind go blank, physical tension, or feeling an overwhelming urge to run or fight. It can also be embarrassing — if you’re afraid of water because something happened when you were younger, and others are swimming and having fun, it’s hard not to feel that something must be wrong with you. There is nothing with with you, your subconscious mind is protecting you from a threat that was once real. Or may still be real - if you never learned to swim because of a childhood trauma, then going into the sea is still a bad idea! Learning to swim may ultimately be the best way to overcome a fear of water, but how can you learn to swim if you won’t get into the pool? This will require therapy, and applying the right methods in the right sequence.
How does hypnotherapy help with overcoming fears?
Most therapists consider the forced confrontation or Primal Scream approach to be outdated and barbaric, and I don’t know a single therapist who would go near that. Using force in therapy is a contradiction because therapy is consensual - consciously as well as subconsciously - I don’t fight or push your subconscious mind, I suggest more preferable alternatives in hypnosis and allow you to “make up you own mind”. Hypnotherapy can be tremendously helpful in Exposure Therapy - the “Gold Standard” for overcoming fears. In hypnosis, you can reach a deep and comfortable state of relaxation in which the feared object or situation can safely be imagined at a distance, while you remain calm and present in your relaxed state. When you can relax while imagining your fear very far away, or very very far away, you are using the principle in psychology called reciprocal inhibition — a person cannot be relaxed and afraid at the same time. So in hypnosis, we rehearse scenarios involving your fear at a great distance, while you’re feeling calm and safe. This allows your subconscious to habituate as your nervous system learns at a cellular level that the stimulus is not followed by harm.
Habituation does not mean losing or dulling your natural survival instincts, it’s more like changing the sensitivity on your car alarm, so that instead of going off every time someone walks passed, it only goes off when someone comes too close to the car. The goal is to right-size your fear response so that it serves you, rather than controlling you. Hypnotherapy can be very helpful in habituation, as this requires a level of relaxation that you can easily reach in hypnosis, that enhances the effect of the Exposure Therapy. This will significantly reduce the number of sessions you need compared to other forms of conscious therapy. During your sessions, you listen to a soundtrack engineered to produce deep relaxation that makes your subconscious mind more receptive. All my clients have free access to a selection of supporting soundtracks including assisted meditation to deepen your state in hypnosis, develop a calm sense of authority in your mind, and build resilience in your nervous system. You can also request a custom affirmation soundtrack that you can use every day to reinforce your confidence and self-worth.
What happens in a session with Andrew to overcome your fear?
Sessions are between one and two hours depending on your booking preference. In the first part we discuss any changes since your last session, or dreams you remember. We also discuss how you would like your life to be when you are free of fear, and create affirmations that build your confidence and reassure you that you deserve to be safe in whatever your fear is preventing you from being. During this conscious part of the session I help you establish a safe location for the object or situation that you fear, that doesn’t bother you because it’s too far away to worry about - for example if you are afraid of water and you imagine a house somewhere in France that has a pool, you may be okay with that. I use the exact location that you choose for the feared object or situation, in your habituation script.
The second part of the session — around 30 to 40 minutes — is dedicated to Exposure Therapy in hypnosis. Hypnosis will take twenty to thirty minutes. You’re in a comfortable space at home where you can relax without being interrupted, listening to my voice and psychoacoustic soundtrack streaming through your headphones. The video feed allows me to see your reactions and adjust if I need to. You can communicate at any time, but most people feel okay and they don’t need to. I guide you to meditate into a relaxed day-dreaming state where you can let go of thoughts, and then I begin your habituation script, for example mentioning a TV series about houses in France and one had a pool but this didn’t bother you because you weren’t there, you are here, feeling calm and relaxed. We do this several times, each time returning to the calm relaxed state, allowing your subconscious mind to ponder “Am I really in danger?” After about 20 minutes, I gently bring you out and we discuss your experience.
How many hypnotherapy sessions will you need for overcoming fears?
Clients I’ve helped through recent fears, without severe trauma, using Exposure Therapy in hypnosis, who make good use of the supporting soundtracks every day, can overcome their fear in six to nine sessions, though the timeline is genuinely individual. The first one or two sessions focus on establishing a safe location for the feared object or situation and developing meditation skills to maintain deep relaxation during the habituation work. By session three or four they find they can gradually reduce the location distance while maintaining their relaxed state. These cases will see significant changes by session three or four. If this is the case, by sessions six to nine they can imagine in hypnosis doing the thing they fear, or using that object, completely un-phased, without any fear, feeling relaxed and comfortable.
Two factors increase the number of sessions you will need - How long the fear has been affecting you; and the degree to which you were traumatized. A fear from childhood, if left untreated, may become deeply ingrained as a survival program in adulthood, which may additionally have been reinforced by parental or religious conditioning, so there’ll be a certain degree of resistance that will require time to establish subconscious permission, before even working with the fear. This foundational work can extend the fear treatment by a minimum of six sessions. A fear from a trauma that occurred at any point in your life, will require grief therapy for you to process and heal from the emotional loss of being traumatized. This foundational work should happen first, before addressing the fear, extending the treatment by a minimum of nine sessions.
Is hypnotherapy effective for overcoming fears?
Yes, hypnotherapy is highly effective for overcoming fears. Exposure Therapy is considered the Gold Standard for treating fears and phobias, and hypnotherapy enhances its effectiveness significantly by allowing you to reach the deep state of relaxation required for habituation to work at a cellular level. Research consistently shows that hypnotherapy is effective for anxiety-related conditions — and fears are fundamentally anxiety-based responses that live in your subconscious mind. The scientific principle underlying this approach is reciprocal inhibition: you cannot be relaxed and afraid at the same time, which has been validated extensively in psychology literature. When Exposure Therapy is gradually applied in hypnosis, your nervous system learns at a cellular level that the feared stimulus isn’t followed by harm, and this habituation happens much faster than with conscious therapy alone because the deep relaxation state makes your subconscious more receptive to new programming in a safe space. Studies also show that combining hypnotherapy with affirmations produces better outcomes than either approach alone. The key to success is consistent practice with the supporting meditation soundtracks between sessions, which reinforces the habituation work and significantly reduces the total number of sessions you need.
Hypnotherapy works at the subconscious level where fear responses actually live — this is why it’s so effective. The deep relaxation you achieve in hypnosis allows you to safely imagine feared situations while remaining calm, which creates habituation at your nervous system level. Your body learns that the feared stimulus isn’t followed by harm, and this learning happens faster than conscious approaches because the relaxation state makes your subconscious more receptive to reprogramming. The supporting meditation soundtracks provide daily reinforcement between sessions, which accelerates your progress significantly. Many people find this particularly effective because it addresses the automatic fear response directly rather than trying to overcome it through willpower alone. Online sessions are just as effective as in-person — the soundtrack takes you into an inward space and all the exposure work happens in your imagination with your eyes closed. Many people prefer to relax in their own familiar, comfortable space, rather than traveling to their therapist every week.
What results can you expect from Andrew’s treatment?
After the first session for overcoming fears, most of my clients are surprised by how relaxed they were in hypnosis, imagining their fear very very far away, because doing this consciously doesn’t have the same effect at all! Its also quite common to experience an immediate reduction in your fear response after a session, and if you remember your dreams, they may have a sense of wonder or freedom as your subconscious mind gradually comes to believe that you are actually safe from this particular fear. If you make good use of the free supporting audio tracks, after about two weeks you should find the meditation technique becomes easier to practice by yourself, and this significantly increases your ability to relax more deeply in hypnosis, which enables more rapid progress in reducing the distance between yourself and the object or situation you that fear.
The term Exposure Therapy may seem intimidating at first but after a few sessions the cyclic repetition becomes familiar, like doing circuits at the gym - you start looking forward to it because you feel stronger ever time you do it, and you know what’s coming next. As you progress into the treatment you’ll notice how the meditation stabilizes you, and grounds you in your security. It brings a tremendous feeling of confidence in your own safety, to know that you can imagine your fear at a safe distance, and be safe from it. I often see my clients smiling in their later sessions as they start to feel the principle of reciprocal inhibition working - it is impossible to feel scared and calm at the same time! Within nine weeks you’ll find yourself thinking about your fear without feeling overwhelmed - and after that tipping point its all downhill.
Would you like to talk to Andrew about overcoming your fear?
Avoiding fear is normal, but if you feel like you’re missing out on life because of fear, that’s not fair on yourself. You may not relate to the symptoms and situations I’ve described, and if you don’t, or if you have any questions about Exposure Therapy or habituation, or childhood fears or traumatizing experiences, please book a Free 15-minute consultation. There’s no obligation - I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. Or, if you feel brave you can try the AW Experience - A starter session with affirmation soundtrack. If you’re ready to talk I’m ready to listen.