Fears and phobias start from something that is sometimes real and sometimes imagined. So the cause for instance of a fear of flying may have been a difficult flight, or it may be that there has never been a real negative experience – just an imagined one. It makes no difference, the sub conscious mind can't tell the difference between something that's real or imagined, and so the fear is just as real whatever the cause.

Your imagination then increases the fear by playing the worst case scenario again and again in your mind. This is why phobias become worse over time, to start with they are manageable, but they become completely out of control after convincing yourself time and again as to how frightening that thing is. Most people that I see tell me how stupid it is, they know logically that the spider, or the bird or whatever it is can't hurt them, but sub consciously – that's another story.

In either case the sub conscious mind thinks it's protecting the person. It has learnt through these events or imaginings that this is very frightening and dangerous. So whenever the person comes into contact with the fear, the sub conscious gets everything going to cause that person to be very frightened so that they take themselves away from the cause of that fear.

Through Advanced Hypnotherapy we can change how the person looks at the experience. We can remove the fear completely if it is safe to do so, or not if some degree of fear is necessary. For instance if a person has a fear of climbing up ladders, we need to keep some of the fear because it could be potentially dangerous; we don't want that person wrecklessly scaling a ladder with not a thought to safety. However, we can get the fear down to realistic levels.

Sometimes it is necessary to go to the cause of the problem, but most often I am able to use the fact that the sub conscious doesn't know the difference between a real or an imagined event, and supplant a negative programme for a positive one.

Most people are concerned that they may need to confront their fear in order to get over it. Some therapies use this, it is called aversion therapy. However I don't need to use this method, indeed when I had a fear of birds the thought of having to endure the cure put me off going for help at all.

Advanced Hypnotherapy is very successful at getting over fears and phobias, it is quick and what's more it is a pleasant experience!