Hypnosis for Emetophobia
Do you suffer from a fear of being sick? Is your intense fear of vomiting making causing you to avoid public places or are you avoiding situations where you believe that you might either be sick or see someone else being ill? If so then our Hypnotherapy for Emetophobia in Nottingham can help you to lower your anxiety response and calm down any associated fears so that you feel more relaxed and in control.
Emetophobia can rule your life if left unchecked. It can cause panic attacks and make you feel as if you are losing control. Yet with an emetophobia treatment plan, it is possible to change unhelpful thoughts and break free from this anxiety-related condition.
Why Do Some People Have an Intense Fear of Vomiting
Emetophobia or a Fear of being sick is one of the most common phobias in the UK today even though it is not very commonly discussed.
It is defined as irrational anxiety or fear of vomiting. Its origins vary from person to person but generally, the fear of being sick is likely to have started in childhood because of a traumatic event. Traumatic events in relation to a fear of vomiting may not seem horrific to an adult but they can be incredibly scary as a child.
Usually, the fear of vomiting either begins because the child is sick themselves and they fear scared themselves or because they have witnessed someone else being ill which gave them extreme fear.
This extreme fear is likely to be more intense in children who were ill and felt that there was nobody there to help them when they needed it or when they were sick in a public place which caused them embarrassment or shame. From that point on the subconscious mind wants to prevent a similar situation from occurring again and so starts to avoid similar situations.
The conscious and unconscious mind can often be in conflict because of this many years later. Consciously our clients want to stop their sickness phobia but the subconscious still remembers and triggers emetophobia because of the learned response many years before.
Hypnotherapy for Emetophobia Nottingham can help to determine where possible the root cause of this subconscious issue is so that the intense anxiety can be more easily controlled.*
Causes and Roots of Vomiting Phobia
A fear of vomiting often stems from a combination of factors including:
- Your own traumatic past vomiting experiences usually as a child which creates a phobic reaction
- Witnessing other people vomit which gives you extreme fear
- Trying to exert total control over bodily functions
- Absorbing parental or peer anxiety around illness
- Transference of other anxiety issues onto vomiting
- Hypersensitivity to internal sensations like nausea
Hypnotherapy can help you to identify and resolve experiences so that you are no longer creating a disproportionate reaction to a problem that you may only experience rarely.
Finding the underlying causes of a fear or phobia can be helpful in changing the way you think about past experiences and help you stop avoidant behaviours. This can alter how you think and also help us aim therapy at your actual problem rather than guessing.
Understanding Emetophobia: Fear of Vomiting
Emetophobia involves an overwhelming preoccupation and anxiety about the possibility of throwing up or witnessing others get sick. It can be a debilitating phobia with significant avoidant behaviours. When you have a fear of vomiting you may:
- Take extreme measures to avoid nausea triggers like certain foods, motion sickness, stomach bugs
- Experience debilitating anxiety when feeling unwell
- Have panic attacks when nauseated or significant anxiety
- Suffer from severe health anxiety focused on illnesses involving vomiting
- Feel distressed when others are sick
- Experience checking and reassurance-seeking behaviors to calm your anxiety
Emetophobia sufferers recognise their worry is excessive but feel powerless to control it. Hypnotherapy can help by recalibrating the mind’s ingrained reaction to nausea cues. It can also help you to be calmer so that you can use exposure therapy to lessen the fear.
How Common is a Fear of Vomiting?
A fear of vomiting is a relatively common complex phobia however it is often underreported or misdiagnosed. Many people don’t ever seek treatment for the problem as they are embarrassed or are completely unaware that it is a diagnosable condition.
The prevalence of emetophobia in the general population is thought to be somewhere between 1 and 2%.
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America estimates between 1-2% of Americans suffer from the problem which equates to a significant number of people.
Why Emetophobia is So Problematic
The problem with anxiety disorders such as emetophobia is that they can be debilitating for many people. Daily life can be severely impacted by health anxiety causing people to
- Fear Vomiting in Public
- Fear of Feeling Nauseous
- Avoidance of Public Transport
- Sitting Near Exits So You Can Leave a Situation Quickly
- Fear of Having Children Due to Morning Sickness
- Fear of Eating in Restaurants In Case of Food Poisoning
- Fear of Being Travel Sick
- Fear of Eating Unfamiliar Foods
- Avoidance of Social Events
When fears and phobias are left unchecked they can soon start to take over your life because of the avoidant behaviours. This is because your unconscious mind will use extreme avoidance tactics to avoid places where it feels that the problem could occur. Hypnosis for anxiety issues can be a great way of helping people overcome their worries and fears.
It is worth noting that emetophobia can often be linked with other fears and anxieties such as health anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, fear of medical procedures and social anxiety disorder. When we conduct our sessions for fear of vomiting we take a holistic approach and always look at any associated problems so that therapy can be aimed at all the issues that you may be experiencing.
Download more information on how to help your feelings of anxiety and panic with our free PDF.
The Problem With Safety Behaviours and Avoidance
Emetophobia is known as a complex phobia and the intense and irrational fear of vomiting, or witnessing others vomit often gives rise to a range of avoidance or safety behaviours
Individuals with emetophobia may go to great lengths to prevent situations or triggers that they believe could lead to vomiting. This might involve avoiding certain foods, public places, social events, or even close contact with individuals who might be feeling unwell. They believe that this will help them avoid the panic and phobic reaction.
Emetophobia-driven avoidance or safety behaviours can even link to a fear of medical appointments because of the worry about picking up other people’s germs or feeling nauseous because of any treatment. This can understandably be dangerous and impact their physical health.
Whilst avoidance behaviors provide temporary relief from the fear response, they only reinforce and intensify the phobia over time. This ultimately restricts the individual’s quality of life and impedes their ability to engage in everyday activities.
Addressing and managing avoidance behaviors because of a fear of vomiting is an important aspect of treating emetophobia, often through therapeutic approaches that gradually expose individuals to their fears in a controlled and supportive manner to help reduce the phobia’s impact and enhance their overall well-being.
The Problem With Anticipatory Anxiety
Our hypnotherapy for emetophobia in Nottingham recognises that as well as avoidance another problem associated with the condition is the anticipation that something bad could happen.
Anticipatory anxiety means that on a daily basis, our clients may feel on edge and worried about something happening even though the likelihood of a problem occurring is relatively small. This feeling is similar to what people feel when they have a generalised anxiety disorder.
Soltuion-focused hypnotherapy works well at helping this feeling as it calms down the anxiety response and prevents the subconscious from continually looking out for danger.
Does Hypnotherapy Work For Emetophobia?
Talking therapies such as emetophobia hypnotherapy have a good track record in helping resolve fears and phobias as well as health anxiety, panic disorders, and associated worries.
Firstly because the deep relaxation that occurs in hypnosis is great at calming down the anxiety response which in turn can reduce the emetophobia symptoms. When our clients feel calm it becomes much easier to help them address the issue because they feel more in control.
Secondly, when our clients are in hypnosis they are able to work with an emetophobia therapist to understand the root causes of their fears so that therapy can be aimed directly at the problem.
In addition, we have expertise in our hypnotherapy practice of using Neuro-Linguistic Programming which allows us to also use other new psychological methods to resolve a fear of vomiting.
Hypnotherapy Techniques Used For Emetophobia
During your initial consultation, we usually take a case history to learn more about your specific problem and create a treatment plan. Our hypnosis sessions for a fear of vomiting include a wide range of therapeutic techniques to help your fear including:
- Parts therapy to resolve inner conflicts between the anxious, fearful part and the wise, calm part
- Hypnotic suggestions to help coach your mind to think differently
- Regression therapy to reframe any unhelpful memories which are creating your phobic response
- Breathing techniques and coping strategies to help you feel calmer and more relaxed
- Systematic desensitization to feared stimuli through gradual exposure
- Visualization of calmly handling nausea or norovirus exposure
- Neuro-linguistic programming to change your mindset around the problem.
- Mindfulness training to reduce anticipatory anxiety
This blend of customised clinical techniques helps to create a more tailored emetophobia treatment and helps to reduce persistent and intense anxiety. Using a combination of therapies can help you to manage the problem more easily and tackle both your thoughts and physical response to the fear.
Exposure Therapy for A Fear of Being Sick
Therapy for Emetophobia typically involves exposure therapy which is a proven psychological approach for reducing the intensity of phobic reactions through controlled and gradual exposure to feared situations.
Our fear of vomiting hypnotherapy sessions use exposure therapy linked to the creation of fear ladders. These are lists of situations that create anxiety graded from the least to most fearful.
In our sessions, our hypnotherapist works with you to take steps up the ladder by confronting your fears. This helps to build resilience and tolerance to the fear response so that it eventually starts to fade away.
As our clients successfully navigate each rung on the ladder, they usually experience a reduction in their anxiety and an improved sense of control. This process helps to reshape their emotional responses to vomiting-related triggers, which ultimately leads to a decrease in overall fear.
Exposure therapy, along with the structured use of fear ladders, offers a proven constructive pathway toward overcoming emetophobia and empowering individuals to regain a sense of normalcy and freedom in their daily lives.*
Online Therapy for Emetophobia
Whilst we have a hypnosis practice based in Nottinghamshire we also conduct therapy sessions worldwide via video. All our clients can access therapy help from the comfort of their own homes by using software such as Zoom, WhatsApp, Facetime and Facebook Video Messenger.
Online hypnosis is a convenient way of getting help and is just as successful as face-to-face therapy. All you need for sessions to take place is a good internet connection and a quiet place to have a session where you won’t be disturbed.
The benefits of online hypnotherapy for emetophobia are:
- Convenience – There is no need to drive to an appointment or find parking saving you time.
- Flexibility – We can offer more flexible sessions as we are not required to follow clinic hours.
- Comfort – Hypnosis can be more effective when you feel more relaxed at home.
- Accessibility – We can offer sessions to people who might normally find therapy clinics inaccessible. Our sessions are available internationally on UK time.
Online therapy is just as successful as face-to-face therapy. For more details contact us to discuss how we run our online hypnosis sessions.
Self-Hypnosis for Emetophobia
If you are unable to attend our clinics for one-to-one treatment for a fear of vomiting with our qualified and accredited hypnotherapist then you can learn to take back control by using self-hypnosis to manage your anxiety and fears. We have a five-part mp3 program that can be purchased in our online store to help.
Self-hypnosis for anxiety is a self-help tool that you can use in your own home to calm and relax your mind. Our self-hypnosis downloads have been created by a senior qualified clinical hypnotherapist to help you with positive suggestions and visualisation as well as anxiety reduction hypnotherapy.
Use a download daily to help with the particular problem that you are experiencing. Our audio download has tracks to help with worrying and negative thinking, panic attacks, general anxiety, and sleep problems, and an mp3 for deep relaxation.
Please note our hypnotherapy downloads should never be listened to when you are driving, operating machinery or anywhere that you need to be alert.
Hypnotherapy Treatment For a Fear of Being Sick
Hypnosis is a great tool for finding out exactly what is at the root of your irrational fears and thoughts. We help you to think about what caused your problem to start and then work with you to change how your mind thinks about that situation in the past.
In particular, we teach you new positive behaviours and relaxation techniques so that you take back control. Gradually we work with you so that you are desensitised from your triggers so that you can live your life without any negative thoughts or behaviours.
Typically a client with emetophobia will need between 3 to 6 sessions to help manage their fear as it is a specific phobia that is more complex than simple phobias or fears.
Booking Your Therapy Sessions to Help With Vomit Phobia
We offer all our potential clients a free telephone consultation so that we can tell you about our Hypnotherapy for Emetophobia Nottingham programs. To arrange a call you can either ring us on the number below or email us to arrange a call back.
Disclaimer*Please note that as this is a form of therapy we are unable to guarantee results which may vary from person to person.