The Fast Phobia Cure

This past weekend, I attended a convention related to paranormal investigation in Savannah called Ghostock 4. I went because of my interest in the paranormal and my liking and admiration for the founder, Patrick Burns of Atlanta's Ghost Hounds. I did not know that a demonstration by hynotist Russ Clarke would be not only interesting, but actually life-changing for me.

Hypnotism is not a subject I had previously had more than a passing interest in. I knew that it has been used successfully in treating addictions like smoking and to help people lose weight, and in pain control. I was familiar with some of the uses such as age regression and past life experiments. But after hearing Russ's talk, I was already feeling more intrigued.

Then Russ began talking about a technique which is not actually hypnosis, but uses a similar method, and which can help people with phobias. He asked people in the audience to tell their phobias. My husband practically forced my hand up and I confessed to my intense fear of knives. I have no really sharp knives in my kitchen and I don't like to look at even a pocketknife. I tense up and look rapidly away anytime there is even a possibility that someone on TV or a movie may attack with a knife. I just hate them. I feel tense even talking about them.

Russ found that phobia interesting, and asked if I would be willing to come onstage and let him try a new phobia technique called The Fast Phobia Cure, based on Neuro Linguistic Programming. He explained that I would not actually be hypnotized, and that the experiment would take only a few minutes. I nervously agreed.

Neuro Linguistic Programming, or "NLP," uses visualization to help a person replay an event associated with their particular phobia in such a way as to change how the mind remembers the event.

It is also called the "visual/kinesthetic dissociation technique," and it does help the person disassociate, or, as I understand it, step away from the event and view it in a less frightening way.

Here's what Russ Clarke did: He had me visualize a scene involving myself and knives that made me extremely anxious and frightened. I have been threatened twice with knives in my life; once by a drug-addict friend I was trying to help and once during a robbery. I chose the robbery. He asked me where on the anxiety scale the scene put my emotions, on a scale from 1 to 10. I chose about a 9, but people in the audience later told me that watching me dig my nails into my hands and my posture, they thought it was more like a 10.

Then, Russ had me picture a small, black and white tv screen with no sound, and place the scene I was visualizing on the screen. Then, he had me move it to a movie screen and imagine myself in the audience watching myself, and then move back to the projection booth and watch myself watching myself in the audience and on the screen. This, as I've since learned, allowed me to put distance between myself and the event, and diminished it in size and importance in my memory. I felt calmer viewing the scene from each diminishing perspective.

Then Russ had me see myself leaving the projection booth, returning to the audience, and then re-entering the robbery scene at the end. He then told me to quickly replay everything in reverse, in about 2 seconds, as though I was watching a tape in reverse. We did this a couple of times, forward and back. I believe at this point, he asked me to revisualize the scene and see where my anxiety level lay. I said about a 6. He then had me visualize a party scene, with children running around and colorful balloons, and knives that I knew were really twisty balloons, even though they still looked like knives. The scene made me laugh a little. After that, he asked me how anxious I was while viewing the robbery scene, and to my amazement, I felt it would be about a 3. All this had taken only a few minutes, and yet I felt so much calmer about the whole knife scenario.

At this point, I thought the demonstration was over, but I believe it was Patrick who thought we should see how I reacted to a real knife. He asked if anyone in the audience had a knife, and I think my anxiety level went back to about six. Someone offered a pocketknife, and they put it on the floor of the stage in front of me. I looked at it, and felt much calmer than I expected, probably still at about 6. Russ said it was up to me, but did I think I could pick it up? It took about a minute, I think, but I did bend down and pick it up, and put it on the table. My anxiety level never went back to 9 or 10.

This was amazing to me, and to the audience as well, apparently. A phobia I've had for years, and I began to get over it in just a few minutes. I wasn't instantly cured of course, but a week later, I can calmly tell my husband, "OK, I don't think I'm ready to look at that," when a knife comes on the tv screen, and then look away, but he pointed out that I am not flinching and tensing up at the very thought of it. I would say I'm well on my way to getting over this phobia sometime in the near future.

In fact, at the end of the conference, Russ presented me with a multipurpose pocketknife still in its package. He said I could keep it and open it when I felt ready. I was grateful, but my feelings were mixed. But I felt it would be a useful tool to work with in practicing overcoming my fear. At this point, I have the knife on my coffee table, but I still haven't taken it out of the package. I expect to soon, though, as I keep looking at it and visualizing it as a twisty balloon.

NLP has been proving successful for many people who are good at visualization, and works far faster than more traditional methods. Based on my experience, I would strongly suggest that people with phobias, whether it be flying, spiders, knives, or whatever, find a trustworthy, trained practitioner such as Mr. Clarke and give NLP a try.