Magazine


How to cure your spheksophobia

by Conrad Astley
31/ 3/2005

EVERYONE has a phobia of some kind, and for most people, it isn't that much of a problem.

While the common ones such as arachnophobia - fear of spiders - and snakephobia - fear of snakes - make a lot of sense, many seem to exist purely to enable somebody somewhere to make up a word.

Pity whoever is afflicted with a crippling case of siderophobia - fear of stars - optophobia - fear of opening one's eyes, or the dreaded walloonphobia - fear of walloons.

And what about those whose lives have been destroyed by paraskavedekatriaphobia - fear of Friday the 13th - or even sesquipedalophobia - fear or long words?

Unable to offer anything so exotic, I went to see hypnotherapist Shaun Thompson to see if he could do anything about my spheksophobia - fear of wasps - but found his methods weren't quite what I expected.

Sitting in his clinic, in the back room of a hairdresser's in Sale Moor, he admitted this wasn't Harley Street, but said he believed his treatments were as successful as those used by therapists who charged three times as much, and prided himself on being able to cure cases in one session.

Shaun, a charismatic Yorkshireman who got into the game after training with TV's Paul McKenna, said he used a method called emotional freedom technique (EFT) to rid people of their phobias.

He explained EFT, first devised by an American psychologist working with traumatised Vietnam veterans, involves tapping on acupuncture points to help release negative emotions.

Another of Shaun's techniques enables him to access his clients' unconscious memories, thus wiping out the phobia.

In my case, he asked me to visualise the first time I was stung by a wasp, which he said was the root of the problem.

However, this was not easy to do, as I was about five at the time.

I then had to visualise an image of a wasp, making it appear as large as possible in my head, before giving a mark out of 10 for how frightened I was by this.

He then asked me to imagine the image becoming smaller, so it eventually became the size of a postage stamp.

I was becoming a bit sceptical about where this was going, and if it would indeed rid me of the phobia.

But I was even more confused when he asked me to tap various points of my body while repeating the line "even though I have this fear I completely and utterly accept myself" and was beginning to wonder whether he was going to ask me to go outside and hug a tree.

However, after a few times through this cycle he asked me to bring the image of the wasp back up, and once more give a mark out of 10 for its impact.

I had to admit, the insect in my imagination did not seem as scary, and we went through this routine until the figure dropped down to zero.

Next, we tried some hypnotherapy - something I have always been cynical about.

Thankfully, Shaun did not click his fingers and make me go under, and he said that was not what the therapy was about.

Instead, he made me lie down while talking through a headset - called a hypnocom - which also played relaxing music.

He told me to imagine walking along a beach, and counted down from 10 until I was in a state of "deep" relaxation, and could meet the five-year-old child who had been stung by a wasp and tell him everything was alright.

This was nothing like the weird trance state I had imagined. Although I did feel very relaxed, I still knew I was sitting in a room in Sale Moor with someone talking to me through a headset and a photographer snapping away.

Shaun said the experience was on a par with being in a daydream, and there was nothing mystical about it.

He added that a machine attached to my fingers, taking readings of electrical activity from the brain, had dropped around 20 points during the 15-minute session, and he often hypnotised himself as a way of calming down after a stressful day - something which even brought his blood pressure down.

As for my spheksophobia, it was difficult to test whether anything had changed, as you don't get that many wasps in March.

But I did leave that hairdresser's feeling very chilled out.

Call Shaun on 282 0675 or 0797 986 3197.


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