How a phobia can get in the way
The other day I was swimming with my daughter at our local gym. As we changed into our costumes we chatted with a lady who looked like she was in her 80’s who was struggling to put on her costume. She made some comment to me about how it was a long time since she last put one on. Of course my daughter just went ahead and put hers on to make it worse!
When she eventually came into the pool she seemed to circle nervously and never actually got in. I watched her curiously at the same time as playing the “smelly monster” game with my daughter (I’m a smelly monster, speak in a weird voice and chase her)
When we were changing she was too and as I came out of the cubicle after getting changed she started telling me how she’d only learnt to swim a year and a half ago but that she was terrified of the pool. Of not knowing how deep it was. She was afraid of drowning. She told me how it drove her husband mad – he kept telling her to just get on with it. She explained to me how she could do all sorts of things including having recently learnt to play golf and she was so cross at herself for not doing this.
Now in the past I would have smiled and beat a rapid retreat. Not these days though! Now I go into “What’s that about mode” swiftly followed by “I can help!” I’m becoming quite a pain about this!
Anyway, I explained to her that it actually wasn’t her fault. That responses like this are driven by our subconscious that is trying to protect us and no amount of logic will make a bit of difference. I asked her if there was a particular event she could remember that started her fear of swimming. She told me all about when she was a child and had been underwater, drowning. Someone had pulled her up by her hair and seeing she was fine had left her to carry on playing.
No wonder she was scared!
I explained that technically she would be insane to want to get into the pool given that experience! Her subconscious has filed that experience under “very unpleasant, never do this again” and for the rest of her life it has been protecting her from getting into a similar situation that puts her at risk. The more she pushes herself, the harder it makes it for her as it tries to protect her.
She processed that information. “That makes sense” she said as I saw a certain amount of relief pass over her face. She clearly was an amazing and determined lady who was achieving many great things and was struggling with how this made her feel.
I explained to her how, if she had a few minutes, I could do something that may help her get over that fear. She had given me enough information to use the phobia technique.
She wasn’t sure. Of course she wasn’t. This was some random encounter in a changing room after all.
“You’re not going to make me get in the water are you?” she asked warily.
“Nope” I replied “I’m not going to make you do anything. If you want to get into the water afterwards that would be your choice entirely”
Because it is natural for someone to expect some sort of radical immersion therapy approach for a problem such as this. But that’s not how Cognitive Hypnotherapy works. Most of our interventions are remarkably simple and painless. They can also be very effective very quickly. Explaining this to someone in a gym changing room is not easy!
We agreed that we would bump into each other again and to do nothing there and then. She said she was very interested in me helping her but clearly needed time to process this concept.
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