Situational & Specific Fears
Hypnotherapy can help address…
Fears & Phobias
A phobia triggers overwhelming panic—racing heart, nausea, dread—even when your rational mind knows there's no real danger. Common phobias include flying, heights, needles, enclosed spaces, driving, and public speaking. Avoidance patterns expand over time, increasingly limiting your life.
Exposure therapy requires enduring fear repeatedly, which is exhausting and shows marginal results for many. Hypnotherapy works differently—we reprogram how your subconscious interprets threat rather than forcing you to endure fear. Many clients report dramatic reduction after just a few sessions because the fear response itself changes at its source.
Research shows hypnotherapy combined with minimal exposure outperforms extensive exposure therapy alone. As a physician, I understand panic's physiology and can screen for medical conditions that might mimic or worsen phobias.
Performance Anxiety
Performance anxiety strikes during presentations, tests, athletic competition, or any evaluated situation—racing heart, shaking hands, blank mind. Ironically, it's often worst for highly competent people whose skills are undermined by automatic fear responses.
Exposure therapy requires repeatedly enduring anxiety, and beta-blockers only mask physical symptoms. Hypnotherapy retrains how your nervous system interprets performance situations by using mental rehearsal in hypnotic states to build neural pathways for confident performance.
You'll learn to access flow states, strengthen focus, and channel nervous energy into intensity. As a physician with CBT certification, I integrate conscious skills with automatic response reprogramming for sustainable performance improvement.
Medical & Dental Procedure Anxiety
Fear of medical or dental procedures is common even when you know they're necessary. Anticipatory anxiety—fear of pain, loss of control, or past trauma—often causes more suffering than the procedure itself. You spend weeks dreading something that lasts minutes.image.jpg
Sedation and anti-anxiety medication address anxiety during the procedure but not the weeks of anticipatory dread beforehand. Hypnotherapy reduces pre-procedure anxiety, reframes medical settings from threatening to manageable, addresses trauma from past negative experiences, and teaches coping techniques you can use during the procedure.image.jpg
As a physician, I understand both sides—the medical reality and the fear it generates. I can explain procedures in straightforward terms to reduce catastrophic thinking and work collaboratively with your medical team.
Research Support
Öst LG, Stridh BM, Wolf M. (1998). A clinical study of spider phobia: Prediction of outcome after self-help and therapist-directed treatments. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36(1):17-35.
Phobias:
Schoenberger NE, Kirsch I, Gearan P, Montgomery G, Pastyrnak SL. (1997). Hypnotic enhancement of a cognitive behavioral treatment for public speaking anxiety. Behavior Therapy, 28(1):127-140.
Performance Anxiety:
Montgomery GH, DuHamel KN, Redd WH. (2000). A meta-analysis of hypnotically induced analgesia: How effective is hypnosis? International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 48(2):138-153.
Medical & Dental Procedure Anxiety: