Claustrophobia

Feeling trapped, enclosed, stuck, unable to escape…..it’s a horrid feeling that can get in the way of you living your life to the full.

• Travelling (trains/planes/cars/buses/tubes etc)
• Tunnels
• Toilet Cubicles
• Lifts
• Rooms / Cupboards
• Under water
• Theatres / Cinemas / Restaurants

These are just some of the places or situations where those with claustrophobia can feel terrified and need to escape, and will tend to start avoiding putting themselves in those places too. Sound familiar?

Quite often, we see clients for fear of flying, or social phobia, or panic attacks and more often than not, they will be claustrophobic too.

Claustrophobia is NOT something we are born with.  We may have a parent who is claustrophobic and as a children, we pick up their fears subconsciously, but it’s mostly due to a specific event or situation where there was a moment of feeling trapped, unable to escape, fear of dying.  At that moment in time, the brain (more specifically the Limbic System and the Amygdala) stored this event as a ‘trauma’.

For some, the feelings of claustrophobia begin immediately afterwards.  For others, there may be a kindling effect and it’s not until months, years or sometimes decades later where something triggers the previously hidden trauma and suddenly, as if out of the blue, a feeling of being claustrophobic occurs!

Sometimes, the claustrophobia appears to disappear for a while and then suddenly pops up when we’re not expecting it.

So as you can see, as with all fears and phobias, by being able to target the initial encoding ‘trauma’ along with the worst experience and most recent experience, it’s giving you a better chance of freeing your mind from claustrophobia for good.  We are changing the brain landscape to being more resilient so that you have a different response to what you were doing before.

Using Psychosensory Therapy, specifically The Havening Techniques®, we are in a better position to be able to target the Amygdala where the Claustrophobia originates.

Blended in by experience with NLP and Hypnotherapy, The Havening Techniques® works gently yet powerfully, and based on the results with our happy clients, this appears to be the most effective way to clear fears and phobias.

So what have you got to lose (other than your phobia(s) of course?)  Let’s have a conversation and see how we can help.