Phobia Treatment ~ Morris County and Warren County, NJ

EMDR and Hypnosis Can Help You to Live Without Fear

Maggie Vlazny, MSW, LCSW Director Psychotherapist & Marriage Counselor Specialist in Phobia Treatment Certified EMDR Therapist Certified Imago Relationship Therapist Certified in Medical/Analytical Hypnosis View Credentials

About Phobias

You know if you have one. Its a strong, irrational fear of something that actually presents little or no real danger. It is a type of anxiety disorder in which you experience panic at even the thought of encountering the feared action or thing. You may get rapid heartbeat, tightness in your chest, shortness of breath, trembling, and sweaty palms and feet. You have an intense desire to stop thinking about the feared object or activity, and an even stronger desire to escape when confronted with it.

A phobia often results from having experienced something that felt extremely dangerous, which caused the fight, flight or freeze response. This is a normal physiological response which any person (or animal) experiences when survival is at stake. Think of the deer in the headlights, or a herd of zebras running from a pack of lions. So when something happens in the present which which triggers the memory of the original trauma, the same physiological fear response happens.

Sometimes the phobic reaction is obvious. A person has a car accident while driving and thereafter has a phobia of driving. But sometimes it's not so simple. At the root of the phobia there may be a psychological, emotional, or situational trauma, which is buried in the unconscious. The actual trauma feels so terrifying to even think about that your unconscious mind projects it on to something that was present at the time of the original trauma, or perhaps something that symbolizes the trauma. Common phobias are fear of closed in places, elevators, tunnels, public speaking, highway driving, flying, certain animals, height, and blood.

Phobias are categorized into three classes: agoraphobia, social phobia and specific phobia. Agoraphobia is an intense fear of being in a situation from which escape is impossible, which is why agoraphobics don't, or feel like they can't, leave their homes social phobia is excessive and debilitating fear of embarrassment in social situations. Specific phobias are further categorized into four classes: situational, fear of the natural environment, animal phobia, and blood injection/injury phobia.

We successfully treat phobias with either EMDR or hypnosis. You do not have to live your life like this.

How I Help

I've been working with anxiety disorders for over 14 years, and specialize in phobias. I use my training in both hypnosis and EMDR to help people feel better as soon as possible.

I first use the hypnosis to help with situational anxiety or fear of the fear, better known as anticipatory anxiety. I teach people to do self hypnosis, which is really just very deep relaxation. Once you have learned that, we practice pairing it with images of your phobia so that you can feel for yourself that relaxation and fear can't happen at the same time. It's physiologically impossible.That's an immediate helpful tool for all types of anxiety (including panic attacks).

I then use the EMDR to find the cause of the phobia in the first place. I nearly always find some kind of traumatic event which the client doesn't want to remember or think about and has projected onto the feared object or situation. The EMDR work de-sensitizes the client to the original trauma and the phobia is treated. This is not a guarantee, of course, but most of the time this two-pronged treatment has worked very well for my clients. I also work with generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, performance anxiety, and panic attacks.

If you would like to talk about this, or make an appointment for a consultation, I would be happy to hear from you. I do participate in some NJ Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield PPOs, depending on your plan.

Learn more about EMDR.