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Riddikulus! The One-pill of Overcoming Fear

Maribeth
Jun 23, 2016
2 min read

I remember that Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban in which Professor Remus Lupin was demonstrating to his students how to banish a Boggart. A Boggart is a shape-shifting being that will take the form of what ever the viewer's most fear.

Let us talk about fear. It is actually one strong reason why people do what they do.

-fear of poverty /loss

-fear of being alone/ unloved

-fear of reprimand/ persecution

-fear of being hurt

-fear of not being good enough /devalued

-fear of failure

Does any of these ring to you?

By definition, fear occurs when we PERCEIVE danger. So when we say perceive, it is our personal interpretation of a stimuli. So it applies when there are people who fear cockroaches and there are others who don't. The afraid group see roaches as "dirty" , "nasty", "they bite". People who don't fear cockroaches perceive the bugs as "harmless" and "nothing".

Where does fear come from?

Babies are born without fear. They climb, jump and do stuff fearlessly. Fear is developed when the child experienced being hurt both physically and emotionally.

What happens to you when you are afraid?

Fear, depending on strength can bring reactions ranging from surprise, escape to ultimate change of behavior and decision making. One example is a parent's decision to deny dating to teenage daughters until they reach 18. While other parents may be lax on this rule, most sound decisions are made with sound fear.

Overt fear on the other hand, changes a person's logic thinking. One can go completely phobic, escape, freeze, or become aggressive. Such fears may affect a person's life or relationships.

Here is what I commonly hear from severely-depressed women:

"I cannot let go of my boyfriend/husband because I am afraid of being alone and never able to find another one."

Her life is trapped in an unhappy state because she is afraid.

I for myself was afraid of rich, sophisticated men. I felt that these men ridicule me in silence and I felt imperfect when I am around one. I cannot talk confidently whenever I meet a sophisticated male client. I got it resolved with this exercise.

How to Banish A Boggart in 3 Steps:

1. Whenever you think of that thing that you fear, notice how how big is the image as you see it in your mind.

2. Distort: Make the image smaller than you, smaller... Freeze the image, make it black and white. Is it right in front of your face? How does it make you fee?

3. Think of something funny about the image. Maybe put a clown's make up on your fearsome man's face?

How does it feel now?

Therapy for Adult Fears

Most debilitating adult fears rooted from incidents that happened between 3-12 years of age. Depending on case story, hypnotherapists usually would perform a regression under hypnosis to uncover and resolve the root of the fear.