Hypnosis and Social Phobia

Social phobia is one of the types of Anxiety disorders which is widely prevalent in society. It signifies fear of embarrassment or humiliation in situations where the person is exposed to the possibility of being scrutinized. The fear is stronger than the normal anxiety most people experience in social or performance situations. Generally, the anxiety is so intense that the person begins to avoid the situation altogether.

The most common social phobia is fear of public speaking.  Writer has written another post on this topic on this website earlier. Social phobia tends to affect all kinds of performers, speakers, jobs requiring making presentations and students who have to speak in front of the class. Also, doing music recitals, sports activities, and concert performances also fall in this category. People who have social phobia also tend to avoid social situations, make new friends and they prefer to remain isolated as opposed to facing the challenge of being in social situations. 

According to Edmund. J. Bourne other types of social phobia include fear of blushing in public, fear of choking in public, fear of being watched at work, fear of using public toilets, fear of writing or signing documents in the presence of others, fear of crowds and fear of taking examinations.

Social phobias are extremely common and the person gets the diagnosis of social phobia when the avoidance begins to interfere with work, social activities or important relationships. 

Onset of social phobia is generally in childhood or late adolescence. They often develop in children who are shy and it generally begins around the time when the child is faced with serious peer pressure.

Recovery from Social Phobia

Imagery desensitization and In Vivo therapy are effective in treating social phobia. The person works with the Cognitive Behavioral Therapist who is trained in addressing fears and phobias with gradual exposure to the situations the person has been avoiding, first in imagination and then in real life. Additionally, the person is made aware of the irrational component of their belief system and self talk and asked to write counter statements to dispute the irrational thoughts and reframe dysfunctional thought patterns with cognitive restructuring. Also, it is important to treat the person in a holistic manner and address self esteem, assertiveness and confidence level to reduce the reported intensity and frequency of anxiety in phobic situations.

How Hypnosis can Facilitate Recovery from Social Phobia

Hypnosis has been used very safely and effectively to eliminate social phobias. In hypnosis a trained hypnotist will first use the induction to relax the body and mind of the person. When all tension is melted away, the Alpha wave activities in the brain are produced which are 7-14 CPS in wavelength. The subconscious mind becomes highly receptive to the suggestions of the hypnotist when alpha waves are created in the brain. All the suggestions go deep and get embedded in the subconscious mind firmly. Subsequently, these suggestions become instrumental in releasing the phobia. Additionally, a trained hypnotist will also give audios to the client for reinforcing the suggestions embedded during the sessions.

Social Phobia Case Study

At Blossom Hypnosis, multiple clients have been treated with hypnosis who came with the presenting problems of social phobia.

I had a client who had intense social anxiety going to social situations. He lived in a supportive level of care and whenever he had to go to celebrate a festival and eat meals with other residents, he would have a panic attack, he would sweat profusely, experience trembling and shakiness, dryness in mouth, heart palpitations, hyperventilation and engagement in negative self talk.

He came to me and I offered him a set of eight sessions. First few sessions focused on Anxiety management techniques, then age regression to explore the onset of the phobia. It turned out that when he was seven and he had to recite a poem in front of the client, he forgot his lines and was mocked by the class. Since then he developed the fear of being embarrassed in public and lost his confidence. In hypnosis, he was able to recall the incident and his fear was released. Several more sessions were conducted on Worrying, Unwanted thought relaxation, Letting go of fears and phobias. Fear of panic attacks, Blow away stress, Negative thought release, and many more hypnotic anchors were offered in the sessions. Once the fear that was deep seated in the unconscious mind, was released, my client was offered several sessions on building self esteem and increasing his level of confidence.

Sessions like Inner child, Circle of confidence, Confidence -garden of life, Dial up confidence, Crystal ball confidence, Ego strengthening, Empower Yourself, Hourglass confidence and Personal confidence were offered with powerful affirmations that he had to repeat during the session for empowerment and confidence building. 

The client listened to all the audios of these sessions and gradually, his shyness disappeared. He began to go to small groups then became confident to attend the parties of larger group size. He learned how to manage his anxiety and be able to face the situations he was avoiding for so many years. His mother had found me after reading my article in the ‘In Good Health’ magazine. She was pleased to see his progress. I did four weeks’ follow up on him and he did not report any symptoms of relapse of the symptoms. He continued to listen to the audios provided to him. He has a lifetime access to the audios so he will benefit from them in his entire life.

In this way, we see that hypnosis is a very safe and effective tool to address all kinds of phobias and fears. I also treated him for his addiction to alcohol with hypnosis. He was using alcohol to mask his symptoms of anxiety and became addicted to it.

With hypnosis sessions, he became sober and did not need alcohol to alleviate his anxiety as he mastered the skill of anxiety release and used the hypnotic anchors to address his anticipatory anxiety in social situations.

If you are suffering from Social phobia and need to overcome it, it is not too late. Please contact Blossom Hypnosis at 585-281-2988 or schedule a free consultation. Due to COVID-19, I am doing sessions online via Skype, FaceTime, Google Meet and Zoom.