Afraid Even Knowing There Is No Reason: Phobia, and Why Telling Yourself Not to Be Afraid Never Works

Some people are frightened enough of elevators to climb the stairs every day, even working on the twenty-third floor. Some will cross the street to avoid a pigeon. Some are frightened enough of having blood drawn that they have put off a check-up for years, knowing perfectly well they should go.

Ask whether they know the thing they fear is not dangerous.
They know. Every one of them knows. And they are still afraid.

That is what separates a phobia from ordinary fear.

What a phobia is, and why it is so hard to stop

A phobia is an intense and disproportionate fear of a particular thing — one that arrives automatically and is strong enough to interfere with daily life. It may attach to a place, such as somewhere enclosed, high, or wide open; to an animal, such as an insect, a snake, or a dog; or to a situation, such as speaking in front of people, flying, or seeing a doctor.

What happens in the brain on meeting the feared thing is far too fast for conscious thought to keep up with. The amygdala, the region that processes fear, sends its alarm before the analytical part of the brain has any opportunity to assess the situation. A racing heart, shaking hands, sweating, weakness in the legs — all of it inside a fraction of a second.

Which is why telling yourself “there is nothing to fear, this is not dangerous” so rarely works. Those words reach only the conscious mind, while the fear circuit doing the actual work sits at a level considerably deeper than that.

Where phobias come from

Most phobias do not appear for no reason at all. They usually grow out of an experience the brain recorded at some point in life, and from which it built a way of responding that has been automatic ever since.

For some people there was a frightening experience directly — bitten by a dog as a child, so the brain learned “dog = danger” and kept that response in place. Others learned it by watching a family member afraid of the same thing. And some are genuinely unsure when it began.

However it started, what is happening in the present is that the brain keeps running the blueprint of that fear every time the cue appears — without ever asking whether the situation in front of it is still frightening now.

How hypnotherapy works with a phobia

Because a phobia involves an automatic response circuit, working with it does not rest on understanding at the level of thought alone. The brain also has to be helped to learn a new response through experience.

Hypnotherapy approaches a phobia by helping the brain enter a state conducive to learning a new pattern, from which the therapist works with the fear circuit directly — helping the brain “meet” the feared thing internally, safely and by degrees, until the automatic mechanism that used to sound the alarm begins to adjust the way it responds.

The process does not erase the original memory. It helps the brain build a new way of responding to the same cue — opening a new route rather than running automatically along the old track again and again.

What the evidence says

Current evidence supports the use of hypnotherapy as an adjunctive tool, particularly in conditions involving anxiety and certain kinds of fear, though the strength of that evidence varies by type of phobia. A 2021 meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found that using hypnosis as an adjunct to CBT produced better outcomes than CBT alone in a number of cases, especially in groups involving anxiety and performance-related fear.

That said, research in this area still carries certain limitations, and results may differ from person to person and by type of phobia. Hypnotherapy works best as part of a comprehensive plan of care rather than as a treatment on its own.

What to know before deciding

Some phobias respond very well to hypnotherapy, particularly those with a clear point of origin or those bound up with an intense emotional response. For phobias that are complex or accompanied by other symptoms, a good therapist will always assess first whether hypnosis is appropriate in that case, and how it should be combined with other approaches.

In the Neuro-Behavioral Repatterning & Hypnotherapy process, what NBRH gives weight to with a phobia is understanding how the fear circuit formed, and working with it in a way that respects the brain’s own mechanisms for protecting itself. Not forcing a person to be less afraid, but opening room for the brain to learn that it is now safe enough to respond differently.

Because a phobia is not weakness. It is something the brain learned and has been running ever since. And what the brain has learned can be learned anew.

If you would like to understand how these response circuits form in the subconscious in the first place, “Hypnosis as Subconscious Learning” takes that up directly. And if you are wondering whether the resistance that arises during work on a phobia is normal — and how it is worked with — “There Is No Weak or Strong Mind” answers that question.