Wednesday 2 February 2011

The Fast Phobia Cure

The Fast Phobia cure allows a client to process an unpleasant memory or a phobic response so that they change the order of the experience in their brain in such a way that it is eliminated and no more fear exists.

The fast phobia cure allows the client to re-experience a trauma or phobia without experiencing the emotional content of the event or having to face up to the trigger that would normally set off the phobic response.

You should ensure that you work in a comfortable, relaxed environment with no distractions, where the client will know themselves to be completely safe in the presence of the practitioner who can help them to be grounded and to overcome their phobia.

The client will examine an experience whilst they are doubly dissociated from the memory, creating a separation between them (in the now) and the emotions of a trauma or a phobic response in the past. In this particular exercise, the double dissociation is done through having the client watch themselves in a cinema (double dissociation).


Please check this technique out on YouTube if you have any problems understanding how to use it.  We will upload a video clip to our facebook page.

The Fast Phobia Cure:


1. Identify when you have a reoccurring phobic response or a traumatic or unpleasant memory that you wish to overcome.


2. Remember that you were safe before and are safe after the unpleasant experience.


3. Imagine yourself sitting in an empty cinema auditorium, sitting comfortably watching yourself on a small, black-and-white screen.


4. Now imagine floating out of the you that is sitting in the cinema seat and into the projection booth.


5. You can now see yourself in the projection booth, watching yourself in the seat, watching the film of you on the screen.


6. Run the film in black and white, on the very small compact screen, starting before you experience the memory you wish to overcome and running it through until after the experience when you were safe again.


7. Now freeze the film or turn the screen completely white.


8. Float out of the projection booth, out of the seat, and into the end of the film.


9. Run the film backwards very quickly, in a matter of a second or two, in full colour, as if you are experiencing the film, right back to the beginning, when you were safe.


10. You can now repeat steps 8 and 9 until you are comfortable with the experience.


11. Now go into the future and test an imaginary time when you might have experienced the phobic response.


Enjoy!

2 comments:

Andy Smith said...

Variation: You can use a TV screen as being less overwhelming than a cinema screen.

Added bonuses: you can get the client to use their mobile phone as a remote! It's a lot easier to vary the qualities of a TV picture than trying to affect a cinema picture by tinkering with the projector.

Plus, most people have experience of running a recorded programme backwards; very few will have experienced this in the cinema.

Andy Smith said...

Can I also leave a cheeky comment to say that the Manchester Business NLP and Emotional Intelligence Group is back in operation - now run by Roger Longden and Robin Hills. I expect you won't mind as you have supported the group (and vice versa) in the past.

The first meeting is on March 8th (*second* Tuesday in the month) and it's me doing "The Appreciative Frame in NLP, Business and Life"!

Details here: http://manchesternlp.co.uk

Best wishes,
Andy Smith