Can hypnotherapy cure a fear of snakes?

ONE in three adults has a fear of snakes. I am one of those three. So can hypnotherapy help you make peace with the slippery reptiles? I went under to find out.

ONE in three adults has a fear of snakes.

I am one of those three. I don’t really know why, but I’ve never liked the slimy, slippery reptiles.

Ever since I was three or four and we sat in preschool singing “I’m being swallowed by a boa constrictor,” I haven’t been able to shake the feeling.

“Oh fiddle (oh fiddle) he’s up to my middle (he’s up to my middle).

“Oh heck (oh heck) he swallowed my neck (he swallowed my neck).

“Oh dread, he’s up to my (slurp gulp).”

That childhood song really set me up for life.

But apparently you can cure this common dread quite easily with the help of hypnotherapy.

Clinical hypnotherapist Julie Rice, says a fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias that she treats in her clinic, Hypnotic Health, (along with a fear of flying, spiders, needles, and public speaking).

Me and a snake. Besties.

Meet my new mate Lucy.

Ms Rice said three to six sessions of 30 minutes of hypnosis is known to be a sufficient amount to have a long-term powerful effect.

So why is this deep form of relaxation effective in eliminating a fear?

“Because it puts you into this wonderful relaxed state of mind where you can tap into a resilient state in yourself,” Ms Rice explained. “Courage and fear come from the same

place so if we didn’t have the fear, we wouldn’t have the courage to overcome it. It’s very much about putting yourself into a resourceful state where you’re happy, secure and feeling

empowered, it might take you to the places where you’ve been in that state, or a bit of work looking at a time where you felt empowered, and then replacing that state with the negative, fearful state before to get rid of that and disassociate.”

So basically, it’s all about replacing a negative response to a thing or situation, with a positive one by creating a new neural pathway which harnesses the resilience inside you.

So after one quick session, how did I go?

Didn’t think I could do this before!

I’d definitely say I’m more at ease with snakes now, I mean look me in the picture above! All up in it! But what you really want to know is how did I get there.

To test my fight or flight response prior to my hypnotherapy session, I was presented with a live three metre olive python called Lucy and was asked if I would like to hold her. My response: ‘Thanks, but no thanks’.

As Lucy hissed and slithered and sized me up from the arms of a handler, my heart beat was through the roof, my palms sweaty and I was looking for the quickest exit.

I was more than happy to be hypnotised - just to get out of the same room as the snake.

In Ms Rice’s office, after a quick consultation about why I felt scared, she asked me to imagine and describe to her a time that I had felt happy and empowered. We talked about the physical and emotional responses I experience when I think of snakes and what sort of feeling I wanted to replace that with.

I then sat down in a comfy looking chair, put my head back and she took me through some steps to relax. And boy, was I relaxed. It’s safe to say I’ve never felt that free of tension and anxiety in my life. After 20 minutes or so of visualisation, it was, of course, back to meet my old friend Lucy.

And I have to say I wasn’t anywhere near as bothered by her. Where I was once fearful of her head looking at me, her tongue hissing and her body constricting around me, I was now able to hold her and allow her to wrap her body around mine.

I don’t know whether this was because I realised how irrational my fear was, whether I was just so relaxed from that big comfy chair, or whether the hypnotherapy worked magic on me, but either way, something was different, and in my eyes, that’s a success.

This experiment was conducted to mark the release of Unbroken, a film which explores the fight-or-flight response of WWII prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini. Unbroken is available on DVD from today.

Originally published as Can hypnotherapy cure a fear of snakes?