White coat phobia, related to Latrophobia (a fear of doctors and hospitals), has been a widespread mental health issue that is prevalent in our population among children and adults. Doctors face children who are afraid of getting vaccinated, getting blood work done, and go to the dentist for dental work. They are afraid to see anyone wearing white coat, for example, nurses, lab technicians, doctors and surgeons.
Causes of White Coat Syndrome
Sometimes these fears develop following a negative experience while going through medical procedures. The child then associates negative experience with every upcoming procedure and becomes afraid to face the situation. There seems to be a negative conditioning and the child begins to anticipate pain with such procedures and the tendency becomes to avoid them. It is not safe to let these fears grow as the child will not be able to receive the necessary medical care. The fear needs to be addressed professionally. If untreated, these fears become intensified and continue as the child becomes an adult.
Treatments for White Coat Fear
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps to eliminate such fears when the therapist tries to help the client use cognitive restructuring to reframe dysfunctional thought patterns and teaches relaxation techniques to release tension from the body caused by the arousal of sympathetic nervous system leading to a fight or flight response. Cognitive distortions need to be identified and desensitization techniques are used to eliminate the fear.
How Hypnosis can eliminate fear and anxiety
Hypnosis is another treatment modality to address irrational fears and phobias. During hypnosis, the hypnotist tries to do the induction to relax the body and mind of the client, then deepen the relaxation with the deepener and then release irrational and unfounded belief systems with appropriate suggestions. These suggestions are embedded in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind has a 95% retention rate so it remembers the suggestions and begins to modify the client’s behaviors. There are some neurolinguistic sessions performed to associate positive images with the experience of medical procedures.
There are many hypnotic anchors that are given to the client during the sessions for example, Anxiety release, letting go of fears and phobias, dealing with panic attacks and age regression. Once the fear is eliminated, sessions are designed to eliminate the specific fear of the client, seeing a dentist, going through an internal exam, fear of getting injection, fear of blood work, fear of hospital, fear of going through MRI, Colonoscopy, fear of surgery and so on. The hypnotist addresses the specific fears and gives the relevant audios to the client to reinforce the suggestion in between two sessions. It is good to offer weekly hypnosis sessions and complete the treatment plan without long gaps in between sessions
Following specific sessions to cope with medical procedures, some sessions to rebuild the confidence and self esteem are offered. The client is empowered and given visualizations to enhance self esteem and level of confidence. They listen to the audios to reinforce the suggestions embedded during hypnosis sessions. Some affirmations are provided to chant during hypnosis sessions to replace negative thoughts and fears. I feel that self esteem sessions are an integral part of the treatment of phobias and fears.
Case Study in Overcoming White Coat Phobia
I had a college student whose mother found me and brought her for consultation and treatment. I followed the above methodology and offered her hypnosis sessions to eliminate her fear of getting an internal exam. She had frozen during one of her procedures and could not handle it. Her Ob gyn recommended hypnosis and that is how her mother found me. I treated her for general white coat phobia and then for her specific fear of internal exams. I then gave her some self esteem and confidence building sessions and she became fearless for medical procedures.
She was generally dependent on her mother to take her for medical appointments. However, once she got the confidence that she can handle the medical examination, she called her Ob Gyn and scheduled her appointment and went by herself. She took her audios and listened to them while she was waiting in the waiting room and used it during the exam with deep breathing and chanting of the affirmations given to her. Her mother could not believe the outcome of her hypnosis sessions. She learned how to reframe her dysfunctional thought patterns and replace them with positive coping statements. She listened to the audios daily and her subconscious fear of getting medical procedures was released and eliminated. Self esteem sessions along with audios helped her regain her confidence and reduced her anxiety significantly,
In this way we see that hypnosis is a very safe and effective tool to eliminate fears and phobias. I have treated many clients who came with the presenting problem of white coat phobia and got better with hypnosis. Clients who are afraid of dentists, afraid of surgery, CT scan, MRI and lab work can definitely benefit from hypnosis sessions which incorporate age regression, neuro linguistic programming and self esteem sessions to eliminate the specific fear of the client.
It is not too late if you have not addressed your Phobias and fears yet. Seek help and contact Blossom Hypnosis for a very personal and professional treatment using hypnosis. It will make a tremendous difference in your mental health and ability to face your fears and phobias.
Rekha offers sessions via Skype, Zoom, Google Meet and FaceTime for distant clients not living in Rochester, NY. Due to COVID-19 she is also offering online sessions for clients who reside in Rochester, NY.
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