A 53-year-old lady asked if hypnosis would work for someone who was afraid to drive. Hypnosis is perfect, I told her.

A few days later, she arrived with her daughter. The woman  knew how to drive but was scared.

She explained her symptoms when she was getting ready to drive. She was fine until she sat down in the driver’s seat.  Then her breathing would become rapid, perspiration would break out, she would feel shaky.

Her mind blanked. Too terrified to drive.

Driving was a major issue for her at the moment we met. Her husband had died unexpectedly two weeks before. It was he who had driven her to work each morning.

The woman said she needed to drive because she wanted to get back to work, and she did not want to continue to disrupt her daughter’s life. Her daughter was a mom who needed to focus on her family.

Where It Began

Her fear was based on an incident in her childhood.  At the age of 8, she was involved in a bad crash in Mexico. The car rolled three times and killed a family member, traumatizing her. This traumatized her. Since then, she only has been involved in one accident, a year ago when an 18-wheeler, totaled the van she and her daughter were in.

Addtionally, she was not eating correctly. Her blood sugar levels were lower than they needed to be, resulting in emotional rather than clear logical decisions.

She was confident when she was rid of her driving fear, life would return to a normal.

Using hypnosis, I relaxed her.  I had her view the accident she was in as a child, but from the standpoint of a detached third party. Hopefully, she would understand that the accident was a long time ago, that she was much older, wiser and there was a final point. In the future, she would be the one driving. She would have more control than she had as an 8-year-old.

Personalities are formed between our first and12th years. Because of her decades of trauma, thankfully, a hypnotist communicates not with a client’s conscious when hypnotized, but with her or his subconscious.

The subconscious holds all the information about us, and gives us the behaviors we have taught it to give us.

Using the example of learning to tie your shoelaces — your eyes see the shoelace, the subconscious sends commands to your fingers and the subconscious memory ties the laces without you thinking about it. This process had caused my client’s problem.

She had trained her subconscious to panic when she was going to drive.

The Way It Works

Here is how hypnosis can achieve change. The subconscious does not know what is good, bad, wrong, right, false or real. It merely accepts information. Your conscious mind determines right and wrong. By continually placing the same positive image of this client calmly driving her car helps her see her driving the way she wants.

Her problem was compounded by her husband’s recent death.  When she could drive again, she would be alone, upsetting her even more.

Ultimately, she was successful. She went to an empty parking lot and began to drive. Even though she was nervous, she did as I had asked: Continue to drive, no matter what. 

She eventually passed through the fear and came out serenely o the other side. Along with desensitization and more positive imagery, this helped her to the point where she ad realized that no one ever died from a panic attack

I told her Fear actually is an acronym — False Experience Appearing Real.

It also means Face Everything And Recover.
 
Now armed with the power to overcome her fear, she knows  her family and I are here to support her attempts to drive again.

Her first attempt was draining. She broke through, though, and now is driving as if she always had.

Breaking through her fear barrier and coming out the other side with the added boost of hypnosis led to a beautiful solution.

Do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net