Fears and phobias: how hypnosis helps — from public speaking to fear of flying
The fear of public speaking that stalls careers. The flight that forces you to turn down holidays and meetings. The needles that have kept blood tests postponed for three years. The dentist, the motorway, lifts. Phobias look irrational to the people who have them — and that is precisely why rational arguments do not cure them: the alarm fires on a floor of the brain where logic has no office.
Why "thinking positive" does not solve it
A phobia is a learned, automated association: situation → danger → full alarm (heart, sweat, flight). The body reacts before thought arrives. Telling someone with a phobia "there is no danger" is useless — they know. The problem is not what they know; it is what the body learned. And what was learned can be unlearned — by training in the same register where the association lives.
How hypnosis works on a phobia
- Regulating the alarm first — in a state of deep relaxation, the body learns it is capable of being calm. That trained calm is the base tool.
- Imagined, gradual exposure — within the hypnotic state you approach the feared situation in steps (seeing the plane, boarding, taxiing, flying), holding calm at each step. The brain records a new association: situation → control.
- Rehearsing the day itself — the presentation, the journey, the appointment: mentally rehearsed with the body calm, enough times that the real thing is no longer a first night.
- Anchors — a gesture or a breath linked to the calm state, to use in the moment.
What to expect from results
Specific phobias (flying, needles, animals, the dentist) generally respond well within a few sessions. Broader social anxiety — of which fear of public speaking is sometimes just the tip — calls for fuller work, with psychotherapy. The initial assessment distinguishes one from the other; that is always where we begin.
The first step
If a specific fear is running your diary — flights declined, tests postponed, opportunities missed — it is treatable. At HICOA Clinic we assess your case and tell you frankly what hypnotherapy can do for it. Online or in Matosinhos.
Want to try hypnotherapy done properly?
HICOA Clinic runs clinical hypnotherapy programmes with a set number of sessions — stopping smoking, weight and habits, anxiety and sleep — led by a psychologist and hypnotherapist. Online or in Matosinhos.
See the hypnotherapy programmes