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Phobia of medical procedures – treatment and counselling
Phobia of medical procedures & medicine phobia treatment. Overcome your phobia by replacing phobic behaviour & thinking with logic.
What is tomophobia?
Tomophobia, or a fear of medical procedures or medical intervention, is often referred to as a specific phobia. This is where the specific individual has a specific phobia that relates to a specific object or situation; for example the fear of spiders, flying, or confined spaces.
The other two main types of phobia are 1) social phobias where the phobia relates to an excessive or unreasonable fear of social situations such as fear of public speaking or social anxiety; and 2) agoraphobia - the fear of being alone in a public place or a fear of open or public places.
Most of us have some fear or anxiety around medical procedures and medical intervention, this is normal. You might be worrying about the results from a test or about seeing blood when going for a vaccine or blood test.
But for some, this fear can become excessive and control your behaviour, it can even stop you from seeking medical help when it’s most needed.
The exact cause of tomophobia is unknown, it can occur after experiencing a traumatic event or it can be a learned response as a result of seeing others reacting fearfully to medical intervention.
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What are phobias - taking a closer look
Phobias are an extreme or irrational fear of an object or situation and can cause a lot of distress. They can restrict day-to-day life and, in severe cases, an individual may organise their life around avoiding the thing they’re afraid of. If the phobia can’t be avoided entirely, intense anxiety will result.
Around ten million people in the UK are affected by phobias. Phobias don’t care about your age, sex or social background. Anyone can be impacted.
Phobias are often developed in early childhood, teenage years, or even as late as early twenties. Within those early years, negative experiences can snowball in a child’s mind and lead to a very specific phobia.
It’s easy to see how a phobia might develop; for example being stuck in a lift for a few hours as a child can later manifest itself as claustrophobia. Similarly, the impact of a parent or sibling’s fear can have a knock on effect too. This is quite often found with phobias of dogs or spiders for example; where the child has watched the behaviours of their family members, and their behaviours go on to mirror that person.
Phobia of medical procedures - our approach to treatment
The key is to replace phobic behaviour and thinking with logic. This is the tricky bit, but with expert help it is one hundred percent possible. If you, or someone you care about has a fear of medical procedures or medical intervention, then you are most certainly not alone, and rest assured, we can help your phobia become a thing of the past.
Therapist, coaching psychologist and founder of Pinnacle Wellbeing, Richard Reid, is a specialist in phobia treatment psychology and has helped many clients overcome their phobias.
"The temptation is often to avoid the things that make us fearful. However, this often compounds our anxieties. Our therapies help you to find constructive and supportive ways to confront your phobias one step at a time; meaning that you find a pace which is appropriate to your individual situation and which allows your brain to develop a new outlook to those situations or triggers."
Therapist, coaching psychologist and founder of Pinnacle Wellbeing, Richard Reid.
Specialist medication phobia treatment and counselling
We believe that therapy is an effective way to treat phobias. The use of therapy can help you overcome your phobia of medical treatment as well as its symptoms and triggers. We can then build a tailor-made programme that works for you.
One of the most effective treatments is a form of psychotherapy called exposure therapy. Here, understanding the cause of a phobia is actually less important than focusing on how to treat the avoidance behaviour that has developed over time.
As you learn how to better manage and relate to your reactions, thoughts and feelings, you’ll find that your anxiety and fear are reduced and no longer in control of your life. Treatment is usually directed at one specific phobia at a time. Whilst your main phobia may fall under a phobia of medical treatment, we can also help you overcome any secondary phobias or anxieties you may be experiencing.
We know that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ and that each client has their own set of unique needs and circumstances. We typically use a combination of therapies to treat phobias such as tomophobia; these include hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), alongside talking therapies such as counsellingand psychotherapy.
One of the most effective treatments we use for tomophobia is CBT.
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Using cognitive behavioural therapy for phobia of medical treatment
A highly effective treatment for tomophobia is cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT is about looking at the relationship between your thoughts and feelings, and how they make you ‘default’ to certain behaviours. It’s seen as a different kind of ‘talking therapy’ that aims to solve a person’s current problems. In effect it helps you become your own therapist, where you use the skills you have learned.
Through using cognitive therapy we can help make you aware of what your own defaults are: sometimes they help us, sometimes they don’t – CBT helps you recognise those different responses for what they are.
How does CBT help diminish a phobia of medical treatments?
CBT has good results when applied to someone who suffers from phobias. By using cognitive behavioural therapy your therapist can help you to tackle negative thought patterns you may direct at yourself or that you perceive from the world around you. It is usually these negative thoughts that trigger a phobic episode.
After you have recognised these negative thoughts and when they occur, you can work to replace them with something more rational and positive which will allow you to cope with your phobia in a calm and controlled manner.
CBT is a way to rewire the software of your brain, rehearsing troubling situations in your mind in order to create alternative ways of thinking when that situation arises again. In effect, you’re creating new mental circuitry by challenging and changing old responses that feel hardwired in, but aren’t.
With CBT, the therapist acknowledges that there may be behaviours that you cannot control through rational thought. Rather, these harmful coping strategies are as a result of prior conditioning from the environment and other internal or external stimuli.
By taking (what can feel like) insurmountable tasks and teaching you how to apply a pragmatic and objective viewpoint to these issues, CBT gradually changes the way you look at everyday challenges.
What can you expect from a medicine treatment phobia session?
Our phobias treatment sessions are tailored to suit your needs. We work with individuals, couples, teens, and groups. Each session usually lasting from 30 minutes to an hour; our courses usually consist of around 6 to 12 sessions.
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If you’re still unsure whether you need us or not then simply send us any questions you may have via the enquiry form on the right.