How Do Phobias Happen?
Almost everyone is afraid of something- Spiders, cats, being alone after dark, or speaking in front of a group of people. Fear is a natural and appropriate response of the limbic (fight or flight) system to dangerous or situations perceived as dangerous. A thousand years ago when we were faced with saber tooth tigers on the savannah….we were greatly in need of an alarm response that would quickly let us know that we needed to run for safety.

What worked well for us on the savannah, can prove a genuine problem for us in the modern world. Fight/flight, ‘Old Brain,’ responses are generated in situations of great emotion and fear, which create powerful and often long-lasting neurological responses (hard wiring in the brain.) So if we were followed by a stranger in a dark alley and attacked, we may be triggered by any dark alley.

A definition of phobia includes “ a fear that is not substantiated by actual real danger of threat, or by any reasonable cause, and is accompanied by a careful and thorough choice to avoid any situations where you might make contact with “ * “the dark alley,” the spider, or any stimuli associated with the memory.

Anatomy of a Phobia/Panic Attack

It is often said: “this fear ‘has me, I don’t have it.”

There are a set of predictable responses that often accompany a phobia /panic attack. At the moment that the ‘Old Brain’ recognizes the stimulus a set of events occur very quickly in an order that becomes recognizable and highly individualized:

a). “the person begins to feel the primitive sensations of fight and flight, the brain is then
overwhelmed by feelings and memories that are a movie of impending doom and disaster
b). the ‘Old Brain’ heightens the response and sends out a warning, multiplying the feelings
c). the breathing is altered and adrenaline kicks in
d). the danger is now ramped up and a sense of danger, ‘the worst is going to happen’ prevails….this runs in a loop building new levels of distress and symptoms”**

All Report Some Individualized Combination of:

* sweating, dry mouth
* sensations of drowning or suffocation
* trembling or faintness
* heart palpations
* fear of losing control or possible death
* feeling ‘out of it’
* dizziness
* heavy breathing***

Social Symptoms

One of the saddest outcomes of a phobia and panic attacks is how it limits a person’s social life and choices. Out of a desire to completely avoid the circumstances that trigger the alarm responses, persons will change basic life routines, both social and professional in an effort to limit the chances of having a phobic response/panic attack.

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3.*** The following citings and definitions are credited to Dr. Cyro Masei, M.D., Phobias: When Fear is a Disease; at www.cerebromentente.org

Do I Have to Keep Living with this ‘Old Brain’ Alarm Response?

A classic phobia produces a set of involuntary responses directly related to the fight/flight alarm system, before the person has the conscious ability to stop it. As a result of this phobias are often considered irrational fears.

In fact they are not irrational, they are a one thousand year old hard-wired response that can be broken down into a series of of learned responses to a stimuli (tall buildings, lightening, flying, etc.)

NLP/Energy Kinesiology… takes a map of the fight/flight alarm response and systematically interrupts the reaction, inserting new learned responses that comfort and provide a sense of internal safety …..returning the system to a balanced response. In a few short sessions, relief and equilibrium and a return to basic freedoms and fun are returned!

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