Dear Dick
articles about wide ranging psychological issues
from "The Local Bulletin" (Brisbane Australia)
by Dick Rigby
©all articles are copyright 2006

November 1998
My daughter Jill is 19 years old.  She is terrified of spiders and has been afraid of spiders for at least 8 years.   Jill doesn’t want help with her problem because she believes, that if she overcomes her fear of spiders she would have to come close to them.  The thought of this terrifies her.
Sometimes her fear is so great that she can’t enter a room, if she believes that there is a big spider there.  Our house is surrounded by bush and sometimes spiders come into the house.  We are against spraying around the house.  What should we do - how can we help Jill?
Mrs O
Dear Mrs O
Phobias such as that of spiders (arachnophobia) can be so overpowering that they can severely limit what a person can do in their life. Usually, phobias are reasonably easy to cure.  The catch is getting the phobic person prepared to have the phobia cured.  Sometimes their fear is so great that they don’t want the phobia cured.   If I were to say to Jill, “We can have your phobia of spiders cured and you will be able to walk in the garden with confidence”.  Jill might say to herself, “If that were to happen, I would walk in the garden and then be attacked by a spider”.
The paradox here is that Jill imagines herself in the cured state while at the same time still being terrified of spiders.  She is unable to imagine the non-terrified state.
There are several different techniques for overcoming phobias.  Among these are:- Systematic desensitization NLP, Flooding and Voice dialogue.  I won’t go into these in detail, but they all work on the principle of getting through to the frightened subconscious part that, what they are afraid of is not as dangerous as it seems to be.
Most of these techniques are effective using only a person’s imagination and never having to deal with a real spider.  Usually the person doesn’t feel frightened during the therapy.
The aim of overcoming a phobia is to bring the fear in line with reality.  A person overcoming a fear of frogs could become totally fearless and all would be well.  But if a person were to be cured of a phobia of dangerous critters such as spiders or snakes, they should retain some fear (or respect) because some of them are dangerous.
The aim with Jill would be to reduce her terror of spiders to a mild fear or respect.  Then she could then walk past a spider’s web in the garden and feel ok.
People often grow out of phobias, but therapy is much more efficient and usually painless.

The fear of singing

August 1999
More and more people with voice problems have been coming to see me in recent times.  The most common problem that I come across is the fear of singing or speaking in public.   Over the years, I have treated many people with an overwhelming fear of singing.  For some people, it can even be described as a “terror”.  Their terror is  far out of proportion to anything bad that might actually happen by singing in front of others.  Just the thought of singing in front of people reduces them to a bundle of nerves.  The same sort of fear applies to public speaking for other people.
Usually the fear of singing is learned in childhood.  It may have come from a bad experience at school or at home.  After such a bad experience, the child makes the decision that to sing in front of other people is to risk humiliation.  Often, the memory of the humiliating event is locked in the subconscious mind and carries through into adult life.  Even though we may no longer be consciously aware of the event that caused the fear to develop, that fear still controls whether we sing or not.
Mary had such a terror of singing when she first came to see me.  She had a pleasant voice and loved to sing, but she had to make absolutely sure that nobody else could hear her.  I helped her to learn to communicate better with the subconscious system that held this fear of singing.  After several sessions, she was able to reassure the fearful part and take a more realistic view of the risks of her singing in front of people.  
As a result of the therapy, Mary was able to improve her confidence in her voice significantly.  Not only was she able to be more confident by making a realistic assessment of the risks of singing in front of other people, but she was also able to improve the quality and power of her voice once her level of fear was reduced.
Mary is now a member of a local choir and singing is one of the passions of her life.  She is still nervous and if she has to sing a solo she can now handle it ok.
At the end of last year, I published my book titled “Holistic Singing and Toning - Using voice power for healing and enjoyment”.  I wrote this book to help people with practical ways to overcome unrealistic performance fears.  The book also deals with how to get the best from you voice.  The book is available from the Kenmore Book Exchange and other book shops.
 

Fear of snakes

September 2000
My husband and I have just moved onto acreage at Brookfield.  I am terrified of snakes and I have been all my life.  As the weather warms up, I don't know how I am going to cope.  I can't walk around the property without being really scared and wary all the time.
I would like to be able to walk around the property and enjoy nature without being frightened.  What can be done?
Mrs L
 
Dear Mrs L
There's good news and good news.  Your fear of snakes can be lowered to a reasonable level so that you can enjoy walking around your property.
Your fear of snakes could be called a phobia.  A phobia is a fear that is out of control.  It is right and proper to have some fear of snakes, because some snakes are dangerous.  But when that fear becomes unreasonable and you are not able to control it, then it can be called a phobia. 
Often phobias are set up by a single traumatic experience.  They are learned behaviours.  Therefore, they can be unlearned.
When I help a person recover from a phobia, there are two questions that I ask.  The first is; Do you know that your fear is unreasonable?  The second is: Do you really want to overcome this fear?  If the answer to both these questions is a resounding yes, then the phobia is usually easy to fix.
With snakes, the question is, "How frightened should I be?"  There are dangerous snakes in the Brookfield area, but they are not generally aggressive and reasonable care can keep you out of danger.  By reasonable care, I mean keeping on the lookout if you are walking in an area where a snake may be hiding.
When helping to fix phobias, I use several techniques such as "Systematic Desensitization" and "The Swish Technique".  Both these techniques are user friendly and don't involve a person becoming frightened.  The Swish Technique is done using your imagination.  Unfortunately, neither of these techniques lend themselves to self help.  They work much better if someone is guiding you through.
One of the messages that may go through your  mind is, "If I overcome this fear then I will become too foolhardy and, and then I might be attacked by a snake".  Not so.  When you overcome such a phobia, you can still be wary and careful around snakes, but the compulsive part of the fear is gone.  You fix the "I know this is ridiculous, but I just can't seem to stop it".