A man with a spider phobia walks into a room. Your phobia means that you can’t even look at the picture of something that looks like a spider without having a panic attack. So he unconsciously scans the room for spiders as he sits in a comfortable chair facing a therapist. Twenty minutes later he is standing in the middle of the room with a spider in his hand and a smile on his face.
A remarkable therapist? Probably not. A casuality? No: this kind of thing happens all the time. A remarkable treatment? Yes: man has just experienced quick cure from phobia.
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE QUICK CURE OF PHOBIA?
The quick cure of phobia is probably the most reliable and effective tool in psychotherapy today. It is estimated to be 90% successful in most phobias because it does what it says: cure phobias quickly. The twenty minute example above is quite typical. And it does so without the scare tactics, psychological archeology, drugs, and exposure used by older, less effective phobia treatments.
HOW DOES IT WORK
Most of us have experienced traumatic and upsetting events in our lives. When we look back on these events, they are never pleasant memories, but they do not upset us as much as they did at the time.
For phobics, it is different. Very different. When they remember their trauma, they feel pretty much the same as when it first happened, even if that was decades ago. They have vivid and moving memories of the event.
It is these kinds of memories, stored in the emotional part of the brain, that drive and maintain phobias. Such memories are so strong and present that simply remembering them can elicit fear responses. That is, the phobia is associated with these memories, so it is almost as if they are in the situation again, experiencing similar responses: panic, heartbeat, tremors, sweating, and an overwhelming desire to run.
For the rest of us, our traumatic memories are dissociated (they are more factual and carry less emotion) because, over time, they have been processed by the logical and thinking part of the mind. For phobics, this dissociation has not occurred. But it is necessary.
The rapid cure of phobia is a process of rapid dissociation. It allows the patient to experience traumatic memories of a state of calm and dissociation or disconnection. The other part of the mind, the rational, emotionless, thinking mind, can then go to work to convert the memories into ordinary, factual, neutral, and non-threatening memories. Like the memory of what you had for breakfast. With the emotional label peeled off of phobic encounters, the phobia deconditions itself. He went away.
THE MECHANICS
The way to achieve this dissociation is to have the patient imagine seeing himself from a remote, third-person, or detached position going through the traumatic event.
The classic scenario is for them to imagine themselves in a movie theater watching an old black and white movie of them going through the experience at very high speed (like watching a video in fast forward). Dissociation can be increased by having them imagine that they are in the projection booth watching themselves sitting in their movie seat watching the movie of their younger self going through the experience. This creates distance and comfort for dissociation to occur.
They are then asked to enter the safe time at the end of the movie and imagine physically rewinding the experience at a very high speed. This step is repeated several times. It creates dissociation because the mind has never experienced the traumatic event in reverse and therefore does not have a fear response ready for it, so they experience it calmly. Memory is recoded by the brain and stored with less emotional charge attached.
These steps are the core of Fast Phobia Cure. They run on the key traumatic memories surrounding the phobia (typically three or four of those memories are used) in a process that can take as little as five minutes.
VARIATIONS
Variations of Fast Phobia Cure may involve changing the theater setting to simply look at a television screen, or having them imagine witnessing the event as a spectator, from a helicopter or bird’s eye view, or viewing it on stage. Or, once the memory is more comfortable, have them watch a “director’s cut” by adding their own soundtrack (often light or silly music is used) and changing something about their appearance in a fun and creative way.
MEASURING AND TESTING THE CHANGE
Before, during and after the Quick Phobia Cure is performed, the individual is asked to rate their level of distress around the traumatic memories. Very high discomfort levels quickly drop to zero or more or less when Fast Phobia Cure is run. Such a rapid change tends to surprise and delight subjects.
The final step is to test the new responses by looking for the old trigger (go spider hunt with the man in the example above). Once again, subjects are often surprised by how eager they are to do this and the feeling of not being scared by the old trigger. For many, in fact, it may seem miraculous. But the quick cure for phobia isn’t miraculous – it’s just based on good brain science, current neurology.
THE ADVANTAGES
In addition to its reliability, Fast Phobia Cure has three key advantages over traditional phobia treatments.
First of all, as the name suggests, it’s fast. Treatment usually lasts for a single session. The mind learns very quickly. He learned to be a phobic very quickly, perhaps in a matter of seconds. Learning not to be phobic again can be, and necessarily is, just as fast. Therefore, painful treatment for a long time is not necessary.
Second, it is safe. There is no direct confrontation with the phobic trigger and the phobic is calm and comfortable throughout the treatment.
Third, it is not intrusive. Because the “movies” are of the patient, the therapist does not need to know the precise details of the traumatic memory or phobic encounters.
WHY IS IT NO MORE AVAILABLE?
The rapid cure of phobia is an extraordinary treatment that any competent therapist can learn and use. But it is not used much. Why?
The answer seems to be that it works too well. And too fast. It can be done in minutes and easily in a single therapy session. And therein lies the problem: Therapists using the quick cure for phobia will likely need to see a client only once, so they don’t make a lot of money. And traditional, old-school therapists and counselors when faced with quick and painless results begin to question their own models of long and painful therapy.
