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What is travel anxiety?
I often I have clients that are experiencing some sort of anxiety related to travel, leaving the house or for flying. Travel anxiety refers to feelings of unease, fear, or panic associated with traveling. This can manifest as generalised anxiety about the process of traveling or specific fears like fear of flying, (fear of unfamiliar places, or fear of being away from home. Travel anxiety is relatively common, especially fear of flying, which affects an estimated 2.5-6.5% of the population.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy as a Treatment for Travel Anxiety
Hypnotherapy involves inducing a state of deep relaxation and heightened suggestibility. The therapist uses this state to help the individual reframe thoughts, reduce negative associations, and manage physical symptoms of anxiety. Solution focused hypnotherapy also works by building confidence and helping to change thought patterns by looking at exceptions and visualising problematic situations in a positive way.
Several studies have shown that hypnotherapy can be effective in reducing symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety, and specific phobias. It often works by helping individuals access the subconscious mind to change deeply ingrained thought patterns and reduce anxiety triggers.
Case Studies
Lisa, a young adult, came to me as she was hoping to go on holiday abroad but had problems with feeling sick whenever she travelled. These feelings of sickness would appear whenever she travelled away from home in whatever mode of transport she used. During our sessions, Lisa let me know that she had finished school during lockdown and as a result had lost touch with her peer group and had a very limited social life. She had very little social confidence and was only happy travelling when she was driving. We used a combination of visualisations, reframing and hypnosis to reduce feelings of anxiety and build confidence. Through our sessions, she started to develop more confidence and self-esteem. She got back in touch with some school friends. She started travelling to see them and getting lifts to social events with other people as her friendship circle grew. She started travelling for work with no problems and building confidence in travelling. After a few sessions, her feelings of travel anxiety were completely gone.
John, a first responder, came to see me as he was having feelings of intense anxiety whenever he had to travel more than about 20km from his home. These feelings hindered his ability to travel for work and prevented him from pursuing sports and hobbies as well as travelling for holidays. John had suffered an extremely traumatic event at work and it was after this that his travel anxiety became evident. He had already had trauma therapy from another therapist and wanted to try something different. We concentrated on stress reduction and relaxation techniques as well as looking at exceptions when he was less anxious about travelling in addition to hypnosis during sessions. His anxiety started to lessen and he was able to travel further and further without incident. He had more and more positive exceptions to refer to and this helped him to build his confidence.
Lucy came to see me a she was suffering from driving anxiety and could not pass her driving test as a result. This was hampering her ability to live in her desired location as she could not drive to work. Lucy had had an accident at work and this had shaken her confidence. We worked on confidence building using reframing and positive visualisations. She become more confident with driving and passed on her next attempt going.
Amy lives in South East Asia but her family have property and business interests in London. She told me she had always suffered from flying phobia, making travelling very stressful. We approached this problem as a classic case of flying phobia and worked on stress/anxiety reduction as well as using hypnotherapy, rewind and reframe techniques to process specific flights that she remembered being especially traumatic for her. She started to see improvements immediately and we were able to use these more positive experiences to build her confidence and reframe her thinking about flying. This resulted in her becoming a confident, frequent flyer.
Get in touch
If you find that travel is causing you anxiety for whatever reason or is preventing you from going where you want and when you want , get in touch to find out how I can help you. I see clients for travel anxiety and flying phobia face to face in Kent: Whitstable, Faversham, Herne Bay or London, Harley Street or online, whichever your preference. Find out more here: https://www.sandboxhypnotherapy.co.uk/anxiety
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