Social Phobia
Phobias are probably the most treatable mental condition because there are many types of effective treatments including hypnosis. The number one therapy is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Cognitive means the way you think and behavior means what you do, so in this therapy what you think is compared to the effects of how you feel. About 70 to 80% of people who go through this therapy report tremendous improvement. It can be lengthy, though, taking anywhere from six sessions to a year.
Neurolinguistic Programming, or NLP, is a subset of cognitive behavioral therapy. It works with how you think, what you think, and how you feel. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works on your conscious mind, where NLP works on reactions from the subconscious. You don't have to try to think of your phobia. It happens automatically. NLP works with the wiring system of the brain and with very specific images in our mind. NLP is been around for about 30 years, and there are some studies out there that show NLP to be as effective as some of the longer and more expensive treatments. They are not 100%, of course. Nothing is, but I would estimate that about 80% of the people I've worked with have had some relief, sometimes in as little as 10 minutes. I have a set of NLP techniques specifically designed to help people with phobias on my website at
www.phobiascured.com. It takes few hours to learn it and it can be implemented the same day. I provide a book as well so people can read all about phobias. The techniques aren't simple, but they're easy. It may take you an hour or two to read through them and understand how they work. Children are a lot more open to working thoughts or pretending, so I find that they hop right to it better than adults.
The two therapies that are not effective for phobias are psychoanalysis and drugs. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of psychoanalysis going on for phobias and still lot of drugs being prescribed, although I suspect they are not trying to prescribe the drugs to cure the phobia. They are just treating the symptoms.
For more info:
http://beauty.expertvillage.com/interviews/phobias.htm
