One of the most common anxiety disorders is social phobia, a condition in which an individual is afraid of certain social settings. An individual with social phobia experiences unbearable fear that affects their personal and daily life.
People with social phobia are extremely self-conscious and worried about what others may think or say about them. They are often afraid of speaking up, out of fear that they will be judged or criticized. Those with social anxiety tend to look down on themselves or have negative feelings about themselves. They are worried about being seen by other people and find social situations to be quite stressful.
Some people with social anxieties may seem "shy," but in the case of a phobia, this is taken to extremes. For instance, if you suffer from social phobia, you might be reluctant to make an important phone call because you are nervous about talking on the telephone. You finally make the phone call, but you are so nervous that you "freeze up" or forget what you were going to talk about. Although it can happen to everyone once in awhile, for a person with social phobia it may happen every single time, to the point where they find it near impossible to make any phone calls.
Imagine it is the evening before a big presentation at work and you find yourself panicking. You hate the thought of being in front of your supervisor and all your co-workers watching as you discuss a project or an idea. You can't help but feel extremely embarrassed and self-conscious. Even after the meeting, you can't stop overanalyzing everything you did and said. You worry that you humiliated yourself in front of your colleagues by stuttering or saying something wrong.
Perhaps you want to go to parties and make friends, but you avoid socializing because you are nervous about introducing yourself to someone new. You find crowded parties intimidating and the thought of meeting new people scares you. You worry about what you will say, or that you will get rejected. You might stay at home very often because you are too worried about going out. These are only some of the ways social phobias can influence our lives.
Social phobias are overblown fears that can prevent you from reaching your career goals or fully enjoying life. But even those who realize their fears are irrational may not know how to eliminate their phobia. People with
social phobia would like to be more outgoing and meet new people, but are too afraid to try. In spite of their conscious desires and best efforts, they can't control their phobia because all phobias are rooted at the unconscious mind. Ericksonian hypnosis therapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques are the most
helpful phobia treatments because they work at this unconscious level.
It can be hard for people with social anxiety to get cured because they can be too scared to visit a counselor or discuss their fear. This is another reason why hypnotherapy programs are perfect for them. The programs promote a tranquil and confidence-boosting mind frame in a private setting, without being intimidating or overwhelming.
The first stage in a good phobia program is relaxation therapy. Hypnosis therapy is a powerful tool for relieving your stress and tension. At the moment when you are relaxed, hypnotic techniques will shape positive ideas in your unconscious and extinguish your phobia. NLP techniques are used to eliminate your fears by directly targeting the thought process that causes a phobia.
In conventional hypnosis therapy, distinctively worded post-hypnotic suggestions are utilized to treat every unique phobia. The problem is, people often ignore being directly told what to think or do, so conventional hypnosis therapy does not always work. A phobia calls for the use of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and NLP.
Ericksonian hypnotherapy techniques work better than conventional hypnosis therapy because they use suggestions that aren't apparent to your conscious mind, instead of direct suggestions. These ideas are hidden in discussion, in different stories and metaphors, to convince your unconscious to follow a different line of thinking. This is why Ericksonian hypnotherapy is far more advanced than traditional hypnosis and far harder for the unconscious to reject.
A single program that includes Ericksonian hypnosis therapy and NLP techniques can treat social phobia and any other phobia, in any person. This is because several techniques are used together to increase their success rate. People are frequently in awe of the almost miraculous effects they can see through hypnosis therapy. Ericksonian hypnotherapy and NLP are ideal tools to help boost your confidence and beat social anxiety so you will be able to live life to the fullest.
Alan B. Densky, CH is a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. His website offers
hypnosis CDs for building confidence. His
Self-confidence CDs were recently reviewed by Personal-Development info in England. Visit him for
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