according to my hypnotist, when you realise the defining moment that caused the social phobia it just kinda goes. he claims to have never had a case where it didnt work but then again he gets 50 quid a session so he would say that.
I believe I am living proof that realising what caused a phobia can lead you to cure it. I never used professionals, but a trigger event in my life made me question the way I'd always perceived things, so I went through that process by myself, and because I made realisations consciously at first, it's taken about two years to get to the point where the 'general' side of my phobia has gone (meaning I don't care what anyone thinks about me apart from a few individuals who somehow became objects of fear almost independent from the original phobia). Like pitkreet, my phobia wasn't an overnight occurrence. I have found several causes that were ongoing throughout my early life, however understanding my exact thought processes at that time consciously felt like a huge revelation, like I'd woken up for the first time since I could remember existing. My
subconscious, which is of course where the fear comes from, took more convincing, as it had taken years to be fully convinced of the implications of what it learnt about me and my relationship to others. If I'd given up when the fear didn't all go straight away, I'm sure I'd still be trapped in that nightmare. Thankfully, I stuck with it.
For the first time ever, I faced disapproval and the fear was
less instead of as usual - more - bad than previously. It was still there, because my brain couldn't just end a survival mechanism because 'I' now thought it was safe to. It tested it. Little by little, as each experience that was normally horrible for me wasn't reinforced as horrible by my own conscious thought processes, but instead by me reminding it why it had just been wrong all those other times, the vicious cycle that causes anticipation anxiety to get worse with each experience came to halt and began to
reverse. This was my subconscious unlearning the negative association and therefore negative reaction. I could feel it happening, and could hardly wait for the challenge, knowing that eventually I would squash the fear into nothing.
Logically, if you talk directly to your subconscious first, instead of letting it learn by your example as I did, the same should happen but much faster. It usually doesn't respond to having thoughts thrust upon it - it wants proof before it'll believe you. However when hypnotised you're so suggestible you'll believe anything, so if done right I can see how a fear would 'just go'. That's my opinion.
Waste of time… If we focus on how and why we developed our social anxiety, and analyze our problems to death it will just make it worst in the end. If you focus on strategies and cognitive methods to get better you can over come SP. I am slowly learning this myself and it's me helping out.
Reliving the many bad experiences simply brings back all the bad feelings, but doesn't cure anything.
worth pursuing.
Digging up bad memories from the past is precisely what you need to avoid. That's just adding fuel to the fire. Surely it can only reinforce your SP, not help you rid yourself of it.
I won't deny that memories can be painful detrimental to recovery, but you don't have to analyse your problems as in dwell on how many times it's made you suffer - your subconscious does that for you lol. Just a little consideration of what kinds of emotions other than the obvious fear it is that you get, when you remember first experiencing it, and then what caused it should help, because you’ll know exactly where your perception of reality has been distorted, and can then work on making your perceptions accurate again. ‘Know your enemy.’ According to dictionary.com, cognitive therapy is ‘A form of psychotherapy using imagery, self-instruction, and related techniques to alter distorted attitudes and perceptions.’ That’s what that trigger event did for me: forced me to recognise that my view of people was based on misplaced emotions. As I’ve said, it’s taken two years for me to crack this thing fully, because my subconscious didn’t know what to make of this whole set of new concepts (which still came bit by bit, I didn’t understand everything straight away). Only experience taught it which emotions it
didn’t need to give me. Hypnotism can be used to speed this up and enhance cognitive therapy. What better way to understand what your misconceptions are than to see them developing before your eyes in a state of complete concentration?