Can Hypnosis help with acrophobia or more commonly known as a fear of heights?

You may wonder whether Hypnotherapy can help with irrational fears or phobias like for example a fear of heights. The short and very accurate answer is most definitely yes!

As a Clinical Hypnotherapist, I see many people with different challenges walk through my door and I enjoy every single one of them, seeing how they overcome these challenges like anxiety, past trauma, phobias, obsessive-compulsive behaviors and stop smoking with the help of hypnosis.

I recently saw a client, a middle-aged female, she called me when she stepped out of the elevator on the second floor of the building where my office is.  Her voice was trembling, she was in a complete panic, she said: “I am sorry I cannot get to your office”. At first, I thought she is just lost, but I could hear in her voice there was pure panic. My office is located in a building that is connected to another building with a bridge-like walkway so to get from the elevators/stairs to my office you have to cross this walkway which is semi-outdoors with a meter-high railing. 

She was coming to see me for anxiety however included was acrophobia or the fear of heights and there was no way she was walking over the walkway.

I asked her to wait for me and headed to her immediately, finding her standing just outside the elevator, trembling, heart racing, flushed, and near to tears.  I did a quick hypnosis technique and walked her over the walkway.  After the first session I walked with her to the elevator, she was considerably calmer than earlier. At her next session, I waited for her at the elevator and she walked over, at session 3 she walked into the office all by herself and said she only had a bit of a wobble in the middle of the walkway, then at session 4 she comfortably walked into my office and said she even admired the view, with absolutely no panic at all.  She mentioned that after her 2nd session the fear building up to arriving at my office had also disappeared, whereas before she would visualize the walkway and be anxious all the way there. 

A few weeks later she wrote me an email saying that she had flown to New Zealand, admired the view from her aisle seat, walked up a few volcanic mountains and was completely calm like earlier years before this irrational fear had taken control of her. She was finally back in the control seat and again free to live her life the way she should. Anxiety was causing her to avoid places, and experiences and this was debilitating for her.

Her anxiety started in childhood and she was explained that her mum was highly anxious so this was certainly a learned behavior with some unhelpful thought processes. As I see with some clients the anxiety manifests in a specific area sometimes but then steadily grows over the years and goes into other areas.   It may start as a fear of driving and then start to avoid driving, then fear of leaving the house and so it continues.  We can interrupt the process and instill new neural pathways and build new more helpful thought processes on a subconscious level and this way they overcome anxiety in a whole and not just one specific fear as it may just then manifest in another area.

So if you were ever wondering whether Hypnosis is a viable option for you do not think twice, just do it!

Make sure to find a Hypnotherapist who is trained in a form of psychotherapy so they can do an intervention by using hypnosis as the vehicle. 

So, if you have an irrational fear, know that there is help and you can get over this!

Genine Raats

Clinical Hypnotherapist and Strategic Psychotherapist

Ecomindz Clinical Hypnotherapy

www.ecomindzstg.wpengine.com