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5 Tips for finding a coach or therapist for your phobia

What to do about a phobia?

A phobia is an irrational fear - that is it is driven by our emotions. This is why huge amounts of will power, facts and reassurance have so little impact on it.

Of course this doesn't stop us trying to ‘understand it’ by examining the past and how it developed or trying to figure out where it has come from. This is quite normal - especially when we don't know of any other way of tackling it. And when seeking the right type of professional help can be a daunting project - hence this newsletter article.

Find a skilled therapist or coach

If you want to get a quick result with a phobia the best route is to seek individual, professional assistance from somebody who knows how to deal with phobias. Yes, it is possible to defuse it by your self - just - but is much easier and quicker if you find a skilled therapist.

So where do you begin your therapist search? Who do you go to? Is a list of letters after their name an indication of their skill? (Usually it is not, by the way.) Are they insured? Will they 'mess with my mind'? How long and how much will it cost me?

Tips from an ex-therapist

This article lists a few pointers which will narrow the search and provide some pertinent questions to ask when doing your research. The tips are based on my own work as a counsellor and psychotherapist from 1983 to 2005.

Incidentally I stopped seeing people on an individual basis because I needed a change in direction and wanted to concentrate on working with groups rather than individuals. So they are designed to help you thoroughly assess who can best assist you and in the best manner - rather than to get you to come and see me!

Get an NLP-trained expert

Now I am obviously biased - I know NLP works and have used it for over twenty years. This is certainly not to say it is the only quick route to effective phobia resolution - it is simply the most effective I've come across. But, then, I gave up searching when I found it was so good!!

So I would recommend you find a qualified therapist or coach who has also trained in NLP to Master Practitioner level. This is because a properly trained NLP Master Practitioner will have learned specific skills for dealing very speedily with phobias. In fact, using NLP, almost any phobia can be defused in between one and three 1-hour sessions!

Yes, this may be hard to believe, but you can get rid of a phobia very quickly indeed and in over twenty years of working as a therapist I have not found an exception to the 1-3 hour rule.

(Incidentally this article is for information only and is not designed to bring me therapy clients - I no longer see people individually and only work with groups nowadays).

Five pointers in finding a therapist

(1) Search the web

Begin with the web and put terms such as ‘NLP Master Practitioner therapist coach’ into Google along with the name of your town or locality and see what comes up. You could also try the local advice centres and telephone Yellow Pages but these are unlikely to provide as much advance information as a web listing.

(2) Interview your short list

Recognise that, whatever their qualifications and training, therapists are human beings and therefore come with a variety of styles and approaches. So I would strongly recommend that you phone three or four and ‘interview’ them.

Ask them what they think is required for you to get over your phobia. If they are evasive or begin talking about more than three sessions look elsewhere. They may be using up a more traditional approach such as "systematic desensitisation" or ‘hypno-analysis’ which can take 10, 15 or even 20 sessions.

It is also important to ask for specific details of how they approach phobias. And if they talk about examining the past or your childhood hang up and look elsewhere - following this route is unnecessary for you although it can be very profitable indeed for the therapist.

(3) Gauge their personality

Remember that your relationship with your therapist or coach is a very important issue - you must feel at ease with them, feel you are treated as an equal, and feel that you can ask probing questions. This will come across - or not - in your telephone interview.

A good therapist will be quite happy for you to telephone, have a brief chat with them to discover how they work, and then go away and think about it before making a commitment. The pompous ones will talk down to you. The ones who are desperate for your money will try to get you to sign up there and then. The manipulative ones will be evasive or waffle about 'therapeutic dynamics' or say they cannot answer your questions without first having an in-depth interview with you.

(Incidentally these suggestions apply, especially, to the treatment of phobias - which is very straightforward. It is less easy for a therapist to be precise in how they might deal with a more complex issue - such as an anxiety or panic attack difficulty. In this case aim to evaluate your options after the first therapy session and, whatever the therapist says, if you have not experienced a significant shift in your experience by the end of the third session it is change-therapist-time. Yes, this may be tough on therapists but is based on my own experience of working as a therapist and is also supported by Brief Therapy research which indicates that most people gain most of the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy within the first six sessions - benefits trail off significantly after this. )

(4) How thorough is their NLP training?

When speaking with your short-list of prospective therapists check whether they have done a full-length NLP Practitioner Training of 120 attendance-hours plus a full-length 120-hour Master Practitioner Training, too. Although it is possible to do each training in much less time it is also likely that the skill of your coach or therapist may reflect the thoroughness of their training.

(5) How do they communicate?

When doing your initial telephone interview you should aim to gauge whether they are of the advice-giving, talk-at-you school. If this is the case avoid them! They are, quite literally, worse than useless since they will impose their views on you rather than help you seek and evaluate your own solutions. This is, at best, unhelpful…

If, on the other hand, they are of the minority who ask lots of questions which are designed to enable you to find your own answers you're off to a good start.

Why does NLP work so well?

Why is NLP so effective and speedy with phobias? It's because the NLP V-K Dissociation Process or 'Fast Phobia Cure' works on the 'mental mechanics' of how we operate our phobia programme.

It does not examine how the phobia developed, now how long you have had it, now how strong it is, nor how badly it affects your life, or other such intellectual issues. The method trains your brain to replace one set of responses with another. That's all. It is quick. It is easy. It can be fun (depending on the therapist). And it is very effective, as long as the coach or therapist uses a huge amount of other NLP skills in applying it.

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From the Pegasus NLP Newsletter. If you would like to receive the newsletter every few weeks you can subscribe at the bottom of main Newsletter Page

© 2000-2011 Reg Connolly - but you can freely pass this newsletter on to friends as long as you do so in its entirety, include this message and link: http://www.nlp-now.co.uk. Please contact us if you would like to reproduce this article in your own newsletter.  

Find a therapist for your phobia