Phobias & Social Anxiety Therapy in London
Behavioural Therapy for phobias & fears with Marcus
Phobias and social anxiety or social phobia can make life needlessly miserable. Avoiding addressing the issue can actually make your phobia stronger, as you will probably have discovered for yourself.
Behavioural therapy for phobias is an effective way to reduce and eventually eliminate the problem of social anxiety and phobias.
What is social anxiety?
Social anxiety or social phobia is an aversion to social situations that often develops in adolescence or young adulthood. This is a time when there is great pressure to be social and out in the world.
Social phobia can become debilitating, and it may be preventing you from carrying out everyday, pleasurable activities, such as eating out or meeting friends.
“It’s not your job to like me … it’s mine!” Byron Katie, author
If you have social anxiety or a social phobia, you may have a horror of speaking in front of people for fear of embarrassing yourself and being humiliated in public. This powerful fantasy may be seriously affecting your work and career.
Therapy for Social Anxiety will help you understand where this ‘fear’ is emanating from and restore our ability to socialise with confidence.
What are phobias?
A phobia is an overwhelming fear of an object, a place, a situation, an activity, a feeling or an animal, that limits your enjoyment of life. It is associated with an unrealistic sense of danger which is distressing for you.
The phobia or fear may significantly affect the way you organise your day-to-day life.
Even just thinking about the object of a phobia can make a person feel symptoms like:
- unsteadiness, dizziness and lightheadedness
- nausea
- sweating
- increased heart rate or palpitations
- shortness of breath
- trembling or shaking
- an upset stomach
Behavioural therapy for phobias looks at the root causes of the fear and helps you to alter your response to the stimulus of the phobia.
How common are phobias?
Phobias are very common indeed. They can affect anyone, regardless of age, sex, race or class. Some phobias and fears which people bring to counselling or therapy are:
- driving phobia
- dental phobia
- needle phobia
- phobia of flying
- dog phobia
- food phobia
- toilet phobia
- being high up phobia (fear of heights)
- claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces)
- agoraphobia (fear of open spaces and public places from which it could feel hard to escape)
How phobias & social anxiety therapy can help
Many phobias started in childhood or adolescence having been learned in your family, or they may have arisen following a particular trauma or incident.
Sometimes these phobias and fears dwindle in importance as you get older. But if they still affect you with feelings of dread or terror, then you should consider the practical approach that Marcus brings to therapy for phobias and fears.
The goal of therapy for social anxiety and phobias is a feeling of being in control of yourself, so that you are free to make your own choices about where you go and what you do.
Behavioural therapy will help restore to you an appropriate, realistic sense of mastery. Therapy with Marcus for phobias, fear and social anxiety utilises a number of techniques drawn from a skilful understanding of how the brain interacts with the body and the unconscious mind.
Phobias & Social Anxiety Therapy with Marcus
Take your first step at overcoming your fears, contact Marcus to discuss phobia & social anxiety therapy.
