I see many individuals who are paralyzed with irrational fear over day-to-day activities like riding an escalator, flying, driving, speaking, or even making direct eye contact with others. Some know when and how the fear originated but most don’t have a clue.  With hypnosis we really don’t even need to know.

It is very frustrating for these individuals because intellectually they know how ridiculous their response is and how it defies logic but they feel powerless to change. What makes it even worse is that over time, with repetition, the roots of the problem grow long and strong, making it nearly impossible to establish lasting relief.

I recently sat with a client terrified of heights, any height at all. She got nervous just climbing a flight of stairs and would refuse to even try unless there was a railing on both sides. The problem was significantly affecting the quality her life.

Hypnosis offered a unique way to ‘pretend’ she didn’t have the fear, to imagine what it would be like. The advantage to doing this while in hypnosis is that the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between what we think about and what we experience in real life. So we were able to insert new preferred ground rules with how she viewed height. Then she listened to the program at home for a couple of weeks…problem solved.

By: Paul Gustafson RN CH