Anyone had exposure treatment or flooding for a phobia?

[FuriousGeorge]

If you did,did it work? I ask because after 4 different attempts to cure me of my phobia,this has been suggested.I'm not too optomistic,as a hypnotherapist tried something similar and it didn't work at all.My current therapist says it has a very good success rate,but seems not over confident about it working either,but wants me to try.I'm just trying to convince myself that this will do the trick as I don't want to go into it half heartedly and write it off before I've even started,but neither do I want to get my hopes up,like I have in the past,only to find that I'm no better,IYSWIM?
Thankyou

Hi Furious George

I'm afraid I don't have any experience of this but I didn't want your thread to go unanswered.

I've sought treatment in the past for a paralysing fear of flying ...which threatened to develop in to claustrophobia at one point shortly after I'd given birth (which is when I sought treatment) ... so I know how debilitating these horrible fears can be. I know my therapist wasn't a fan of "quick" cures because he said that in his experience a phobia usually masks an underlying problem (ie these problems usually have some sort of context) but I'm still not sure whether he was right or not!

Good luck anyway and bumping for you ...

FuriousGeorge - have you tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? I found it very helpful for my emetophobia.

It included a little exposure therapy, but given my fear was of throwing-up pure exposure was not going to work (i.e. making me throw up would not have worked as throwing-up is horrible even for a non-phobic). Anyway, I was exposed to footage of others being sick and to foods I avoided in case they made me sick and I think it helped me as part of a more complex therapeutic approach.

Thank you both.

I was hoping to try CBT,but I think they want to try this first,as it is probably cheaper.The underlying reason theory is interesting,everyone I've seen has tried to tell me it is because of things that must have happened in the past,but apart from being bullied at school and suffering an ectopic pregnancy a few years back,I've had a pretty good life so far.

My phobia is a weird one,I get panicky at the sound of barking dogs.I'm not scared of them,I quite like them,but it started after living near 2 constantly barking dogs.After that I got really sensitive to it and it has gotten worse and worse now.

Artichokes,I suffer from emetophobia as well,but I'm better than I used to be.It is horrible isn't it? You are really brave to be exposed to people being sick.Well Done for getting it sorted out

Hey furious, that's curious because I also have a fear of barking dogs. People think I am scared of dogs and they say "it's OK, it won't hurt you", but for me it is the sudden-ness of the noise.

At my worst, I get jumpy around dogs (even though I like them) because I anticipate that they are going to bark. I even avoid dogs in parked cars in case they bark at me through the glass.

I have used some NLP techniques to help me, so for example when I see a dog, instead of imagining that it might bark and getting nervous, I imagine the dog in a bizarre situation (perhaps wearing a dinner jacket, holding a long cigarette holder, and speaking in a french accent). It sounds very weird but at least it keeps my panic under control. I also recognise that if the dog does bark and I get a fright, that it is a natural reaction.

Interestingly there are some opinions that there are only 2 innate fears for humans - fear of falling and fear of loud noises. You see both of these in the startle reflexes of babies. So phobias related to these can be more tricky to deal with than other phobia types. Possible but may require a range of strategies. Good luck.

beinghonest,I can't believe you have the same problem!It is such an odd one that even my therapist hadn't come across it before-at least I don't feel so alone now.

In my case,it isn't so much the suddenness of the noise,but the fear that it will just go on and on like it did at our old house.It has been reinforced if anything,since we moved,because we live in a rural area where most people have dogs and leave them outside rather than have them as pets inside.This means that I can't escape it at home either.

This isn't funny really,but a week after we moved in,there was a terrible racket one evening,in the field across the road from us.It turned out that the owner held a dog agility class there 3 times a week and there would be about 20 excited dogs,all barking their heads off!You couldn't make it up I suppose.Thankfully it closed down 18 months later,but my recent experiences have reinforced my phobia rather than lessened it,and any dog barking now,especially while I'm at home,sends me into a complete panic.

Oh well,I've ordered a cd of barking dogs and will try the exposure treatment.

Thanks for responding and please let me know how you get on.