In the last NLP Blog we talked about phobias. An important thing about working with phobias is to reframe the phobia. Most people only see the negative side of phobias (you might think for obvious reasons!), however there are some positive aspects to developing phobias. A phobia is an example of the brain’s incredible capacity to learn and remember. I had a client once who said he had really bad problems with his memory. He also had a phobia. I saw this as a good opportunity to do some reframing. You see, how often does someone with a phobia forget to do their phobia? NEVER!
An arachnophobic doesn’t walk into a room full of spiders and forget to do their phobia! They remember to do it every time! Now the amazing thing is that they learn to do the phobia from a one time learning. Maybe they had a bad experience with the thing they are now phobic about. For example, a client of mine had a serious phobia of traveling by the underground – they had once been stuck on a train that broke down and the power went out. People starting screaming thinking it had been a terrorist attack. After that, the very thought of traveling by underground drove him into a panic.
It was a one time learning that for over ten years drove him into a state of terror still.
Phobias start from a one time learning and people always do them afterwards. They are an example of the brain’s amazing capacity to learning rapidly and because you learn to do it rapidly, you can also unlearn it rapidly.
That is what the NLP phobia technique does – it allows you to rapidly unlearn the unwanted pattern of response. More in the next NLP blog…
To learn more about dealing with phobias with NLP and hypnotherapy, book your place on the hypnotherapy foundation course – March 5 – 7 & 11 – 13 and our NLP Practitioner training between March 14 – 20.
