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Overcoming Anxiety with Hypnosis
Almost 1 in 10 people in America have an anxiety disorder. Often the condition is chronic and irrationally based. Left untreated, they can become more intense and even more disruptive to a person's life.
The Four Basic Types of Anxiety Disorders:
A) Generalized Anxiety Disorder
B) Panic Disorder
C) Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
D) Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
A) Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):
3 to 4% of Americans suffer from GAD. They are filled with constant worry, and experience an elevated level of tension which is not in keeping with the actual conditions in their life. They have trouble sleeping, and have difficulty relaxing. They can be suddenly startled very easily. They have trouble concentrating and often feel tired. GAD can begin as early as childhood; and symptoms can sometimes begin to diminish with age.
B) Panic Disorder:
3 to 6 million people in America suffer from panic disorders, with approximately two thirds of them being women. Although it can begin at any age, it usually first begins when people are young adults. While many develop a full-blown panic disorder, some can experience one single attack and never have another. Most panic disorders include agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces, but the underlying fear is of panic attacks. Because of the number of people who have agoraphobia it is sometimes considered a separate anxiety disorder.
C) Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:
About 2% of the general population suffer from an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Of these cases, about one third begin in childhood. People with OCD are obsessed with uncontrollable, often anxious thoughts and/or compulsions manifested in repeated ritual behaviors. A person is considered to have a serious OCD if their compulsive behaviors take so much time and cause such distress that they interfere with their daily life.
D) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is precipitated by a terrifying event which results in the person having persistent very frightening thoughts and memories. Though research has recently shown that women may be more prone to PTSD than men, any one who experiences an extremely traumatic event in their life may be subject to PTSD. In fact, it is estimated that up to 4% of Americans will experience PTSD sometime in their lives. Even though symptoms typically appear within three months of the traumatic event, they can suddenly appear years after the event.
The Origins of Fear:
One of the most common roles of therapy is to assist people in dealing with and ending strong fears that have originated in childhood, when the reasoning ability and an understanding of the nature of reality has not been fully developed. Some fears may result from a traumatic experience as an adult, but most originate in ones childhood.
Common Fears
There are many common fears, such as of flying, high places, water, animals such as, for example, snakes, spiders and sharks. Socially there may be fear of rejection, poor performance in sports, school, theatrical activities, and sex. People might fear performing at work, or failure in life, and even success. There can be a fear of impending danger, darkness, open or closed spaces, and death. There can be a fear of blood, contamination, even the unknown. There can be many others, including a general fear of loss of control. Each one of these can vary in intensity.
Is Fear Ever Useful?
Fear can have important survival value for an individual. It can make people more careful and cautious, and influence them to organize to be better prepared for difficult or dangerous circumstances. However, if a fear becomes irrationally intense and interferes with a person's normal life, then therapeutic intervention is called for.
Something which is a concern can become very disruptive to someone's life if it becomes a strong fear which is disturbing and begins effecting normal behavior. When it is frequently triggered by irrational reactions and begins to seriously disrupt the person's life, then, of course, therapy is needed. Hypnosis can be especially helpful because these reactions are often uncontrollable as they are frequently created by ideas and thoughts that remain out of awareness in the unconscious mind.
Typical Steps in the Development of An Anxiety Disorder:
- Irrational and unrealistic Self-talk creates fear and alarm
- General anxiety is raised over the growing fearful state
- Any rational thoughts that might counter the fear are rejected in favor of the more powerful unrealistic self-statements that created the state of alarm
- Fear of the fear itself develops
- The person begins a program of avoiding those things or situations which could create the experiences of fear and anxiety.
The Advantages of Hypnosis
- Replaces negative and fear generating thoughts with positive and rational thoughts, and unrealistic catastrophic thoughts with truthful statements.
- Removes the fear of the physical sensations that can occur while one is in a panicked, anxious state and the realization that the physical sensations can cause no harm.
- Slows down the heart and keeps it in a more calm state
- Generates deep relaxation
- Frees any tension in the throat to create normal swallowing
- Helps the client overcome and deal with any intense body sensations, such as extreme cold or heat
- Creates clear-headedness that replaces of any sense of panic
- Creates proper calming breathing patterns from the diaphragm to replace short shallow upper chest breathing
What Causes Anxiety?
Even when there are obvious symptoms, the causes of anxiety may remain unknown. The anxiety condition remains because the cause of the fear remains, and these conditions remain unresolved.
Anxiety disorders may result from both psychological and physical factors, and hereditary can play a role in some cases. Discovering the cause of the fear and communicating it to the person can lead to diminishing its power to create anxiety. Once it is discovered then suggestions can be made for dealing with it rationally.
Confronting Your Fears in Hypnosis
Once the causes of the anxiety are found, often through age regression, desensitization can be employed to undermine the power of the thing causing the anxiety. Exposure to the fear generating event through hypnosis will result in both the unconscious mind and the conscious mind being able to deal with it without undue paralyzing anxiety reactions. Through Hypnosis people are able to uncover and face past traumatic experiences and end any negative effects coming from them, so that they can then lead a full, normal life.
You should know that no matter how many years you have suffered with panic attacks, hypnosis will still be able to help you.
Click here to read "Dealing with Stress" by Jeffrey Rose, Clinical Hypnotist
Click here to read "Caffeine, Health, and Recovery" by Jeffrey Rose, Clinical Hypnotist
Please contact us to learn more about how hypnosis can help you to reduce fear and anxiety.
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©2004 Advanced Hypnosis Center; Mannhattan Hypnosis Provider
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