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Fear of Doctor Visits By Osgaldor J. Storm My wife used to be afraid to go to the doctor. As a young child she was traumatized by being dragged to the hospital where her grandmother, with whom she was very close, was being ravaged by terminal cancer. By associating all the sad and intense emotions of her family to anything and everything medical, she had developed a phobia of seeking medical treatment that had prevented her from getting regular checkups and seeking dental care, and this problem continued through adulthood. She had gone only a few times to the doctor in her life, discovered that she would have near panic attacks when she even looked at the hospital, and had gone to rather extreme measures to avoid seeking medical care. When she first described the issue to me a number of years ago, I asked her to “teach me how to have this problem.” I asked her how did she know when to be afraid, and she said that whenever she made a picture of herself going to the doctor, getting scared, and beginning to cry and hyperventilate. When I asked her imagine walking into the hospital emergency room with me, she began to sweat, her face flushed, her pupils dilated, and her tone of voice became much higher and louder indicating a dramatic increase in stress level. As I described the smell of the hospital, she began visibly shaking and having a true phobic response. I anchored her covertly by touching the back of her left hand. After having her stand up, take a deep breath, and remember that she is safe and comfortable here now with me, I asked her to settle back and become even more comfortable again. I began describing to her one of the most enjoyable weeks I spent on vacation in Thailand and observed that she began to go into trance and become very calm and still and *comfortable*. I anchored her growing sense of comfort to the word “comfortable” and I asked her to tell me about the most powerful, calm, and most in-control experience she can ever remember having. She began to describe a research assignment she had when she was a grad student, in Alaska above the arctic circle studying the Aurora Borealis (My wife is a physicist). She described having been a supervisor of a number of undergraduates also working on the project and an experience they had where if not for her own expertise, a couple of the students would have, out of sheer ignorance and inexperience, accidentally caused an explosion by improperly using an astronomically expensive piece of equipment, and killing them all. Literally a matter of seconds before the young man threw the breaker, my wife calmly and casually reached over and unplugged the machine from the electrical outlet, thus averting the disaster. True story! She spoke of feeling a great sense of pride in her ability to remain calm, and absolutely in control of the situation where others might have panicked. I anchored that response, which she evidenced with larger pupil dilation, another flush of color, and a VERY BIG SMILE, to the back of her right hand. Then, very conversationally, I asked her to describe what it would have been like to have been a fly on the wall, watching this whole scenario unfold. How would she have looked to the fly as he watched her move with *absolute comfort* TOTAL CONFIDENCE and remaining perfectly calm and in control of a life-threatening situation. I asked her to consider that the fly might have considered her a hero, and when she responded by dramatically amplifying her state of trance, I paced with “That's right... And just go deeper... Into the thoughts of that FLY ON THE WALL, observing silently, in perfect stillness and comfort.” And I stacked that state onto her right hand again. Then I went on, “And that there might have been a fly on the wall all those years ago in the hospital room with your grandmother, and that fly is just as calm and capable.” From here I asked her to describe the scene vividly as the fly on the wall saw it, to even describe the clothes she had on when she came in with her mom, which she did in lavish detail, right down to her “little green sneakers.” As she described the situation, she stayed completely at ease and comfortable, and then I lead her through a series of similarly dissociated memories of going to the doctor or dentist and discovering that “there WAS a response there, but that now it has become very different.” When led her to imagining the next time when she goes to the doctor or dentist, I fired both anchors on her hands simultaneously while giving the analogically marked suggestion to “feel this growing sense of *comfortable* control as it spreads through your every muscle, nerve, fiber, AND THOUGHT.” She went through the typical integration facial assymetry, but to a somewhat lesser degree, and then began to smile broadly and relaxed more fully. I amplified the good feelings and had her imagine the doctor doing various procedures and her watching herself stay calm, collected, and absolutely in control. Then I had her say good bye to the fly and float down into her own body and see through her own eyes. Upon repeated testing, the only response she displayed in response to being treated by a doctor or dentist was one of great calm and contentment. It has been a few years since we did this and my wife now goes regularly for medical checkups, has gotten treatment for a longstanding medical condition that she didn't even know she had (due to her former phobia), and laughs at the idea of ever having been afraid of the doctor. This entire intervention only took about ten minutes from start to finish and has lasted *phenomenally*. My wife is a BIG believer in NLP now, because she has experienced it firsthand.
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