Face Your Fears
by James Ruddick [jamesruddick@summertownclinic.co.uk]
This week many children hit the streets for Halloween, dressed in all manner of scary costumes, and in groups they knock on the doors of unknown houses to ask for a “trick or treat”. This halloween we’re all encouraged to face our fears, as this week is actually the NHS’ “face your fears” week, information can be found at http://www.faceyourfears.org.uk/
An estimated 10 million people in the UK suffer from phobias. Many people with phobias think they can’t do anything about them, but there is often plenty of help for them, and at Summertown Clinic we have 2 brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapists (CBT), who use a combination of hypnotherapy and CBT to help patients overcome their fears. Jenny Gould, and Abi Strevens have many years experience helping their patients get over a wide range of fears, from flying, to snakes, using the combination of clinical hypnotherapy and CBT which is proven to work well.
An article in Neuroimage journal entitled “Change the mind and you change the brain”: effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on the neural correlates of spider phobia (Paquette et al 2003), reveals that CBT reduces the activation of the area of the brain associated with fear,
“CBT, has the potential to modify the dysfucntional neural circuitry associated with anxiety disorders.They further indicate that the changes made at the mind level, within a psychotherapeutic context, are able to functionally “rewire” the brain.”
In another piece of research in the Clinical Psychology Review, they state that “CBT is most helpful in claustrophobia, and blood injury phobia…” (Fryer & Lipsitz 2007) and there appear to be many research articles similarly providing good evidence to support the use of CBT for patients with a range of phobias.
We would really like to help with any phobias you may have. Please contact us by email, or by ringing our receptionists (01865) 558561 who will ask either Abi, or Jenny to give you a ring to see if they can help further.
