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The use of hypnosis in the treatment of driving phobia
Abstract
The client was a 37-year-old married woman with two young daughters working as a community psychiatric nurse who requested assistance with driving difficulties following a number of accidents, and maintained by avoidance behaviour. Assessment indicated that she was currently avoiding driving on any unfamiliar routes and avoiding motorway travel altogether. This avoidance was affecting her professional and personal life and she was keen to see whether the use of hypnotic procedures in conjunction with a behavioural driving programme could help her. Four sessions were undertaken and, although she retained some anxiety, sufficient progress was established for her to make a long distance trip that she has been avoiding for a number of years. Reviewing progress a year later, she reported that residual anxiety had diminished and that progress had continued. Copyright © 2005 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis
... Flying phobia Milne (1988) Systematic desensitization; bonding with baby Flying phobia Brann (2012) Special place imagery; retrograde desensitization; calmness anchoring Flying phobia (aeroplane phobia) Volpe and Nash (2012) Supportive psychotherapy; exposure therapy in hypnosis; anxiety management Exam phobia (severe test anxiety) Spies (1979) Systematic desensitization. Biofeedback vs hypnosis vs no treatment Fear of public speaking Schoenberger (1996) Hypnosis with cognitive behavioural work Fear of eating Spiegel (1960) Hypnoanalysis; an uncovering of the symbolic nature of the phobia Fear of eating Culbert, Kajander, and Reaney (1996) Hypnosis and self-management techniques Penetration phobia Frutiger (1981) Dilation exercises; psychotherapy and systematic desensitization; masturbation leading to coitus Hospital phobia Waxman (1978) Age regression; systematic desensitization in vitro; self-hypnosis Driving phobia Morgan (2001) Systematic desensitization; psychodynamic psychotherapy; special place imagery Driving phobia Kraft and Kraft (2004) Systematic desensitization in vitro and in vivo; psychodynamic psychotherapy Driving phobia Williamson (2004) Special place imagery; unconscious search; self-hypnosis; use of metaphor; covert conditioning; cinema technique Driving phobia Hill and Bannon-Ryder (2005) In vivo dessensitization; visualization; special place imagery Bus driving phobia Kraft and Burnfield (1967) Systematic desensitization in vitro and in vivo; social support Traffic phobia Kraft & Al-Issa (1965) Systematic desensitization especially to noise Wedding phobia Kraft (1970) Systematic desensitization in vitro using emotional imagery ...
... Due to the fact that phobics tend to experience panic in the feared situation, this category is closely connected with panic disorder without agoraphobia (Kraft, 2012a). Within this subtype, there have been a number of cases that have reported the successful use of hypnosis, specifically in the treatment of flying phobia (Bakal, 1981;Brann, 2012;Deyoub & Epstein, 1977;Milne, 1988), driving phobia (Hill, & Bannon-Ryder, 2005;Kraft & Kraft, 2004;Morgan, 2011;Williamson, 2004), dental phobia (Bills, 1993;Brann, 2012;Gow, 2006aGow, , 2006bWilson, 2006), claustrophobia (Brann, 2012;Kraft, 1973;Velloso et al., 2010), hospital phobia (Waxman, 1978), fear of buses (Kraft & Burnfield, 1967), and more unusual phobias including fear of contamination (Scrignar, 1981) and penetration phobia (Frutiger, 1981). ...
... The last session involved in vivo desensitization at a bus intersection, which she coped with without any difficulty. Hill and Bannon-Ryder (2005) also used motivation as a "driving force" for the therapy in the treatment of a 37-year-old woman with driving phobia. Her motivation became her main goals for treatment, and these were: (a) being able to visit her mother-in-law locally, (b) visiting her parents in the country, and (c) being able to drive on holiday. ...
Part 5 of this series concentrates on the practical use of hypnosis as an adjunct to therapy in the treatment of specific phobias, focusing on animal and situational subtypes. The author evaluates the effectiveness of a range of interventions which have been shown to have been valuable in treatment. The report shows how hypnosis may be employed effectively in conjunction with behavioural approaches, including cognitive restructuring and systematic desensitization, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and dental treatment. There are a surprisingly large number of advertisements in the media which claim that phobias can be treated quickly using behavioural therapy; however, although in vitro desensitization and imaginal exposure have been employed successfully by clinicians, when the source of the phobic anxiety is in early childhood further psychological investigation is often required. This study discusses the implications of using a number of hypnotic techniques which have been employed in clinical practice.
... The use of hypnotic procedures in conjunction with a behavioral driving program is described in a single case study with a 37-year old woman experiencing unspecified driving phobia (Hill and Bannon-Ryder 2005). She received four sessions of treatment consisting of hypnosis, deepening and then safe place where she was asked to picture herself in the driving situation. ...
... She retained some anxiety, although progressed enough to go on a long-distance trip. At 12-month follow-up, residual anxiety diminished and progress had continued (Hill and Bannon-Ryder 2005). ...
Fear of driving is common in the general population and can lead to serious constraints in everyday life. There has been increased attention to this area of research and clinical practice over the past few decades, and a summary of the literature on treatment approaches is timely. This article gives an overview of the current state of research on driving fear and its treatment. First, the main findings about the construct and diagnosis are summarized, including understandings of the epidemiology and etiology of driving fear. Second, existing treatment studies of cognitive and behavioral therapy, virtual reality therapy, trauma-focused and hypnosis-based interventions and treatment approaches using technological aids such as driving-simulators are presented. Until now, no randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the treatment of driving fear have been conducted. Suggestions for future research are made, especially with regard to further exploration of diagnostic features of driving fear and the need for RCTs and robust treatment procedures.
... His results showed that patients in the hypnosis group enjoyed greater anxiety reduction than the other group. Finally, case studies also corroborated the effectiveness of CBH for driving phobia[72], animal phobia[73], and airplane phobia[74]. This evidence tends to support the use of CBH as an effective therapy for different types of phobias. ...
... Mixed results[21][69]CBH and HOC as an effective treatment[71][72][73][74]Significance was reached in the Llobet study[21]but not in the Stanton study[69]CBH provided better results than CBT alone[71]HOC allowed patient to face the phobic situation with success[122]Panic disorder with or without agoraphobia ...
... A range of qualitative analyses indicates that hypnotherapy is effective for the resolution of certain types of phobia or in resolving related anxiety symptoms. It has been reported to successfully deal with situational phobias such as driving (Fischer et al., 2019;Hill & Bannon-Ryder, 2005), travelling as a passenger (Shirley, 2012), flying (Bakal, 1981;Lupu et al., 2019), eating food (Reid, 2016), drinking liquids (Ajinkya, 2015) and fear of poisoning someone (Fenton, 2013). It has also been successfully used with blood-injection-injury type phobias (Gow, 2006) and having injections (Cyna et al., 2007;Medd, 2001). ...
It is estimated that between 3 and 15% of people suffer from
specific phobias in their lifetime. Typical treatments can be
lengthy and distressing. Parts negotiation, an adaptation of the
parts therapy approach in hypnotherapy, was suggested as a
shorter, less distressing treatment option. However, clients’
experience of this therapy has yet to be thoroughly appraised.
Accordingly, this study aimed to elucidate the experience
through qualitative methods. Seven adults with a range of
specific phobias received a single 60-minute session of
hypnotherapy and were interviewed one week later. Thematic
analysis was used to examine their accounts. Five main themes
were identified: (1) Reported changes to pre-hypnotherapy
phobic responses, (2) Exposure testing of the phobia, (3)
Hypnotherapy as a positive experience, (4) Experience of previous
therapies, (5) Core techniques and elements used in
hypnotherapy. While limited in scope, the study suggests a single
hypnotherapy session using parts negotiation may be of benefit.
... After hypnosis, people develop the metacognitive ability to recognize not only the causes of an inappropriate behavior but also those personal and positive characteristics as well as motives that counterbalance the negative ones. Hill et al. [48] used hypnosis to help a woman with avoidance behavior and driving phobia who was engaged in a number of accidents. After four sessions with hypnosis, she achieved her goal of making a long-distance trip by car. ...
Hive and Impala queries are used to process a big amount of data. The overwriting amount of information requires an efficient data processing system. When we deal with a long-term batch query and analysis Hive will be more suitable for this query. Impala is the most powerful system suitable for real-time interactive Structured Query Language (SQL) query which are added a massive parallel processing to Hadoop distributed cluster. The data growth makes a problem with SQL Cluster because the execution processing time is increased. In this paper, a comparison is demonstrated between the performance time of Hive, Impala and SQL on two different data models with different queries chosen to test the performance. The results demonstrate that Impala outperforms Hive and SQL cluster when it comes to analyze data and processing tasks. Using two benchmark datasets, TPC-H and statistical computing, we compare the performance of Hive, Impala, and SQL clusters 2009 Statistical Graphics Data Expo.
... After hypnosis, people develop the metacognitive ability to recognize not only the causes of an inappropriate behavior but also those personal and positive characteristics as well as motives that counterbalance the negative ones. Hill et al. [48] used hypnosis to help a woman with avoidance behavior and driving phobia who was engaged in a number of accidents. After four sessions with hypnosis, she achieved her goal of making a long-distance trip by car. ...
Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Aldous Huxley, Sergei Rachmanicoff, Chopin, Goethe. What do these people have in common? They all used hypnosis to explore and expand the boundaries of their intelligence. The aim of the current review is to investigate the impact of clinical hypnosis on Metacognition, Consciousness and Intelligence based on the counterpart model. Furthermore, we examine the role of virtual reality hypnosis in service of metacognition. The results showed that clinical hypnosis-with the power of attention and imagery-can effectively and rapidly reformat cognitive and metacognitive skills, upgrade intelligence and raise conscious experience into the higher energy levels. Hypnosis improves metacognition by reorganizing the survival-emotional-reward centers, smoothing the non-verbal pathways for effortless self-regulation. We concluded that the clinical hypnosis guarantees peak performance, innovation, success, and happiness in all areas of life. It can also play a significant role in education as a tool for dealing with the well-established learned weaknesses, for mental/emotional training and brain rewiring, facilitating learning, unlearning and relearning. Virtual reality hypnosis is a top promising technology assisting metacognitive training.
... Other authors have described the use of radio and mobile phone contact to permit a more effi cient in vivo exposure program for some people with driving phobia ( Levine & Wolpe, 1980 ;Flynn et al., 1992 ;Wiederhold et al., 2000 ), including the telemonitoring of physiological reactions ( Rovetto, 1983 ). A handful of further case reports have used eye movement desensitization and reprocessing ( Protinsky et al., 2001 ) and hypnosis in conjunction with systematic desensitization ( Kraft & Kraft, 2004 ;Hill & Bannon-Ryder, 2005 ), biofeedback ( Somer, 1995 ), and dissociative imagery ( Williamson, 2004 ). ...
One of the most consistent issues raised by people who are afraid of driving, regardless of the origin or severity of their fear, has been the stigma associated with this relatively common problem. They describe feeling embarrassed about their difficulty with driving, which prevents them from talking to friends and family about it. These kinds of experiences go some way to explain why people with driving fear and phobia seek help. This chapter provides a comprehensive review of terminologies used, diagnostic requirements and controversies, and clinical features that are associated with fear of driving as a consequence of motor vehicle collision (MVC) involvement. Theoretical models explain the acquisition of driving and travel-related fear and avoidance. Procedures involved in the comprehensive assessment of factors that contribute to an individual's experience of driving and travel-related fear and avoidance are discussed, both generally and in the MVC context. A review of treatment is provided along with discussions of MVC-related conditions that have the potential to impact driving behavior post-MVC.
It is estimated that up to 15 % of the population have symptoms of driving phobia. Strong driving related fear affects 1 % of the population, mostly women. From 2012 until 2015 we had 40 clients with driving phobia. For most of them driving related fear manifested as a part of a more complex self-esteem problem, not as an isolated issue. We used various methods concerning the whole contexts of client’s life and the system of client’s relationships. 12 out of the 17 participants of group program and 20 out of the 23 participants of the individual programs experienced a significant decrease of the driving related fear symptoms and started to drive regularly. Based on our experience—driving related fear is rarely an isolated symptom, so it has to be treated as a part of a more complex problem. The complex approach significantly contributes to the efficacy of the therapy.
This article presents an overview of the rationale, procedures, and applications of hypnosis to clinical and health psychology. A four-step working framework is delineated, including pre-inductive phase (with two main goals: restructuring myths and misconceptions of hypnosis and assessment of hypnotizability), application of induction techniques, administration of specific suggestions that facilitates behavior change, and posthypnotic phase which ensures that the subjects learn how to apply suggestions by themselves in daily life situations. Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioural therapy proved additive benefits in the treatment of different disorders: (1) acute pain and chronic pain; (2) psychophysiological and health problems (headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, skin disorders, eating disorders, and smoking cessation), and psychopathological disorders (anxiety and stress reactions, phobias, acute and posttraumatic stress disorders, depression, conversion and dissociative disorders).
This is a single-case study of a middle-aged woman with specific phobia and panic symptoms associated with airplanes. Treatment was brief and supportive in nature, using hypnosis for both exposure purposes and as a self-regulatory tool for anxiety management. The patient’s identified target symptom (readiness to fly) was tracked using daily subjective, self-report measures over the 12-session treatment. Simulation modeling analysis for time-series was used to evaluate the level change across baseline, treatment, and follow-up phases. The patient’s self-assessed readiness to fly increased significantly over the course of treatment, and she successfully engaged in a “practice flight” toward the end of her treatment. However, this patient required a drastic shift in treatment modality, after which progress was made. Theoretical rationale for this shift and ultimate success is discussed.
The present review, which covers the literature on psychological consequences of road traffic accidents (RTAs) published since 1999, identifies three major areas of research in this field. The first area represents prospective research studies that longitudinally assess the progression of mental disorders, primarily post-traumatic stress disorder, after RTAs. The second examines the effects of RTAs on child and adolescent populations. Finally, recent developments in the psychological treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder among RTA survivors are discussed. Such research has identified promising as well as detrimental interventions that have been developed to treat this population.
Though often denigrated as fakery or wishful thinking, hypnosis has been shown to be a real phenomenon with a variety of therapeutic uses—especially in controlling pain
Fifty-six subjects who were afraid of driving were recruited by advertisement and compared to 31 controls without this fear. Subjects were interviewed and given several questionnaires to gather information for making DSM-III-R diagnoses and to determine their agoraphobia avoidance behavior, driving history, and the history of their phobia. Our sample had a mean age of 48, was 82% female, and typically feared and avoided driving on freeways, bridges, and through tunnels, but were not so fearful about driving on quiet residential streets. Diagnostically, 81% of the phobics reported having had panic attacks, but only 14% (8/56) met criteria for Panic Disorder. Although on average phobics had had no more automobile accidents than controls, 15% (8/55) reported an accident as the primary reason for their phobia. The 53% (29/55) who reported panic attacks as the primary reason for their phobia were more concerned about anxiety symptoms while driving than phobics who gave other, nonaccident-related reasons for their phobia. We conclude that many driving phobics do not fit neatly into current DSM-III-R anxiety disorder categories, because they combine characteristics of Simple Phobia and Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia without meeting the criteria for either disorder.
With regard to both the Barber Suggestibility Scale (BSS) and the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS), this paper discusses why and how they were constructed, how they have been used in the past, and how they will probably be used in the future. The paper also presents norms for both scales and data pertaining to their reliability and validity. To make the scales readily available for researchers and clinicians, all of the BSS and all of the CIS, together with scoring criteria, are presented in two appendices.
Though often denigrated as fakery or wishful thinking, hypnosis has been shown to be a real phenomenon with a variety of therapeutic uses - especially in controlling pain.
An AB case design was used to examine the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) in treating driving phobia. After a one week baseline, the patient received three treatment sessions over a ten day period. Treatment included practice of four VR driving scenarios. Peak anxiety decreased within and across sessions. Ratings of anxiety and avoidance declined from pre-treatment and post-treatment, with gains maintained at seven month followup. Phobia-related interference in daily functioning similarly decreased. The results suggest that it would be useful to further evaluate the efficacy of VRET for driving phobia in controlled clinical trials.
Hypnotherapy: A Practical Handbook. London: Free Association Books The truth and the hype of hypnosis
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Karle H, Boys J (1996) Hypnotherapy: A Practical Handbook. London: Free Association Books. Nash MR (2001) The truth and the hype of hypnosis. Scientific American. July: 38–41.