At Mind Up’s Phobia Clinic you will be taken through the skills to manage your fears accompany patients to the feared situations so that they can:
A face-to-face consultation with our Psychologist is designed to identify the actual cause of your fear and commence your treatment process. The first stage of learning to face your fear is to understand why fears develop, what unhelpful thoughts drive your fear and how your body responds to fear. Knowing this provides you with the information you need to begin to address your fear.
Approximate duration: 1 hour (individual courses) or 2 hours (group courses)
Another important part of reducing your fear is to understand more about the feared object or situation. This information can help you to challenge your unhelpful and often irrational thoughts about your fear. The evidence gathered in stage 2 will create a foundation for the challenging learned in stage 3.
Approximate duration: 1 to 1.5 hour sessions
Further session/s with the Psychologist to prepare you to face your fears. The third stage of the phobia course provides strategies to challenge your fearful thoughts, manage your emotional reactions, and prepare for exposure. These techniques are based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy principles and you will be encouraged to practise these techniques regularly for best outcomes.
Approximate duration: 2 x 1 hour sessions
Exposure to real life scenarios helps you to recalibrate your fear system; the principle being that the more you expose yourself to feared situations where nothing actually bad happens, the less worried you become. Exposure can be done in real life situations or through virtual reality technology. Depending on your type of fear, your psychologist will recommend the most appropriate form of exposure.
Approximate duration: Between 1 to 2 sessions (1 hour duration each)