Phobias are very common, and as many as 1 in 10 of us will be affected by a phobia at some point in our lives.

There seems to be a phobia for just about everything, but the most common phobias are:

Aerophobia - fear of flying

Acrophobia - fear of heights

Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces

Arachnophobia - fear of spiders

Claustrophobia - fear of enclosed spaces

Dentophobia/Odontophobia - fear of dentists

Emetophobia - fear of being sick

Entomophobia - fear of insects

Glossophobia - fear of public speaking

Hydrophobia - fear of water

Ornithophobia - fear of birds

Trypanophobia - fear of needles/injections

Xenophobia - fear of strangers

The cause of phobias is not always known. Certain phobias, eg. arachnophobia, can run in families as children learn to fear (spiders in this case) from other family members.

Social phobias, eg. agoraphobia may begin after an anxious and tense experience in a social situation, or it may be that your social confidence did not have the chance to fully develop past the normal stage of shyness of a young child.

How can TLC Dorset help?

Whatever the phobia, and whatever the cause, the phobia is actually a learned response, and it can be "un-learned".

The cause and the automatic phobic response are hidden in your subconscious mind. By the use of counselling, hypnotherapy and NLP,  we can find ,and gently and safely release the emotions and thoughts associated with the phobia.

We can then replace these thoughts & automatic reactions with helpful and positive messages and techniques, and the phobia will cease to exist - it’s as easy as that.