So I was reading an article in the Daily Mirror online whereby Miriam Stoppard is dealing out invaluable advice about overcoming a fear, a phobia of flying.
Here is what she writes (in this article) about how hypnotherapy can help:
Hypnotherapy
A good hypnotherapist will know how to relax you and take you back to the trigger of the phobia – often an innocent childhood experience of flying that seemed frightening at the time. When this old fear is released and talked through, patients usually find their phobia improves.
Hmmm…
Ok, lets get one thing straight… I am delighted that hypnotherapy is mentioned and is advocated here, really delighted.
However, if a hypnotherapist is actually “A good hypnotherapist” then they’ll likely understand that if you take someone “back to the trigger of the phobia” you do run the risk of retraumatisation and scaring them all over again. Also, we have a duty of care to explain the risk of this happening to the client… Which in turn enhances the chances of it happening by creating a modicum of expectancy… I’d suggest that there are better ways of dealing with phobias using hypnotherapy Miriam Stoppard.
That said, the account of CBT she gives is fine… Now if only she mentioned that research has shown time after time that CBT techniques are advanced and enhanced with the additional use of hypnosis, then we’d have really been on to a winner!
Short and not-so-sweet on the blog today… Back tomorrow… 🙂
