"There is nothing to fear but fear itself... or is there?"

Here's an interesting article from www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk about using hypnosis to treat phobias.

SOME of us are scared of spiders, others faint at the sight of carrots – but what exactly are phobias, and what can we do to cure them? Jemma Walton found out.

FOR as long as she can remember, Julie Fisher suffered from a phobia of earwigs. If she saw one she would start to sweat and shake, and she really didn't know why.

It wasn't until she started to train as a hypnotherapist that she realised why she had such an aversion to them – and what she could do to get rid of her phobia.

Phobias normally stem from a traumatic experience you had under the age of 12," she said.

"You may have been exposed to something that really upset you – such as a spider in your bed – and your subconscious will file that away.

"From then on, whenever you encounter what upset you, your subconscious will tell you to act in the way you acted the time you had that bad experience.

And so when you see a spider, or even when you think you see a spider, your unconscious kicks in and makes you faint or sweat or whatever. And that will go on and on, and that is what a phobia is.

"For me, I remember playing in the garden when I was little, and suddenly I came across this earwig that turned on its back, and hundreds of tiny earwigs came out of it.

"That upset me at the time, and from then on, I hated earwigs."

But Julie came to think about her childhood experience, and was able to deal with her phobia using therapy. She now tries to help other people banish their phobias at Equilibrium Wellbeing Centre, on Shrewsbury Avenue, Woodston, Peterborough.

"You can have a phobia of anything," she said. "From insects through to social situations. I treated one woman who was scared of dangling things, and a man who just couldn't bring himself to speak in front of people.

"With a phobia the conscious part of your mind, the rational part, will often be telling you to stop being silly. But the conscious mind only makes up 10 per cent of your mind.

"The other 90 per cent is your unconscious mind. That is much more powerful, and contains everything you have ever experienced. This is the part that remembers the bad experiences and creates phobias.

"What we do is train your subconscious to react differently to the thing that you have a phobia about, so that eventually you don't feel the phobia any more, you don't have the physical symptoms."

Julie treats phobias in a number of ways, including hypnotherapy. One is through the "magic cinema'' technique, where she will talk through a person's reaction to their phobia with them, and ask them to look at themselves fainting or screaming and sweating, as an outsider.

They will then learn to analyse the problem, and gradually reprogramme their subconscious to react differently to their phobia.

"Every phobia can be dealt with, using a mix of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy – some can be dealt with in one session, but most people will need around three. "We don't choose our phobias, they choose us, but they can be helped."

If you're interested in trying hypnosis yourself and you're located in the Los Angeles area, visit Gregory Stacy's website at www.hypnotistlosangeles.com and make an appointment for a free consultation to answer any of your questions.