Hypnosis for Social Anxiety: Does It Really Work?
Hypnosis for social anxiety is a comparatively new concept. But does hypnotherapy really work for social anxiety disorder? The science appears to recommend so! Social anxiety is beyond shyness. It’s a serious mental health state that leads to continuous fear of social situations. Sometimes, it begins at the teenage period and then continues to older age, and treatment may be needed.
What is Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety disorder is a common anxiety issue impacting people globally. This mental health disorder usually boasts a deep fear of being judged or watched by others. People with social anxiety feel awkward in daily situations like eating in front of others, meeting new people, or speaking with pals. Social anxiety can impact your daily activities and cause total avoidance of social communications.
How Does Hypnosis Work?
In some anxiety-provoking and traumatic situations in people’s lives, mental and physical reactions can become associated. If you encounter the same situations repeatedly, those mental and physical reactions, whether they are unhealthy or healthy, are activated again. For instance, if you had a traumatic experience in speaking with the public, you might relate speaking in public to deep anxiety and shaking hands.
The object of hypnotherapy for social anxiety is to help separate the anxiety response of your body from the encounter of public speaking. Moreover, you will get post-hypnotic advice so that you can relax whenever you need to after the session completes.
How to Diagnose Social Anxiety Disorder
Like any other mental health condition, a social anxiety disorder can be diagnosed depending on some criteria:
Fear of being disclosed to unknown people or analyzed by others
A constant fear of social events
The fear affects the normal routine, relationships, and performance of a person.
Fear of acting embarrassingly or humiliatingly
The fear is not because of a substance disorder or current mental disorder.
How to Treat Social Anxiety with Hypnotherapy
Social events provoke mental reactions of fear in social anxiety disorder. Hypnosis can enable the feeling of fear for subsiding to simply handled levels. A basic approach named systematic desensitization includes gradually disclosing subjects to fearful situations. The target is to make the situations feel normal in real. The hypnotherapy process for social anxiety includes 3 phases:
Hypnosis and Relaxation Training – The therapist helps you learn the subject for entering an intense relaxation state.
Creating a Hierarchy – The therapist creates a hierarchy of recommendations depending on the social fears of an individual. Simple situations may incorporate speaking to a close family relative, and harder situations might include speaking to an unknown person.
Slow Disclosure to Fearful Events – The therapist helps you understand the subject for imagining the less fearful social events and then introduces more difficult situations gradually.
Closure
Although there are many professional entities for hypnosis for social anxiety in Davie, all are not certified in hypnotherapies. In that case, you need to look for certified psychiatry that offers hypnotherapy for social anxiety disorder with the guidance of professional hypnotherapists.