How to overcome Emetophobia:

Step 1: Stopping avoiding reminders/cues of sickness

Avoiding anything that reminds you of throwing up? This might be great in the short term but it is terrible in the long term.

Those with Emetophobia often do not like anything that reminds them of being sick. This can include:

-Words related to vomiting.

-Conversations.

-Images.

-Sounds.

-Smells.

-Tastes.

-And many other things.

And this makes sense. If you see throwing up as awful, why would you want to be reminded of it? What is worse, these reminders often cause you to feel nauseous and highly anxious.

The problem is, this often leads to the avoidance of any of these cues which only feeds your phobia.

Why is avoiding reminders unhelpful?

It is only natural to want to avoid anything that reminds you of your fear as it causes you to feel anxious. The problem with this is that it simply makes your Emetophobia worse in the long term.

This is because it increases your fear as avoidance only creates more fear of the thing being avoided. For any Harry Potter fans out there, to quote Harmonie: “Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself”.

For those who don't get the reference, in the books, wizards were too scared to even say the name of an evil wizard, and would react with fear if they ever heard it.

Avoidance has other downsides too:

-Its only a short term solution: Avoidance quickly reduces your anxiety in the short term, but the next time you are faced with the same reminder you feel equally (if not more) anxious. So you try to avoid again, and again, and again.

-It stops you realising you can cope: Everyone has a great capacity to overcome anxiety when they truly decide to face their fears. By avoiding, you never get to prove to yourself that you can get through experiencing these reminders.

-Lead up anxiety: Often you can start to feel anxious before theses reminders if you think they are about to occur. Such as, when watching a film which has a scene which may lead to a potential vomiting scene. Regardless of whether it does or does not occur, you feel anxious during the lead up to it.

You can never recover from Emetophobia if you continue to use avoidance as a coping strategy.

So why do we avoid these reminders?

When people avoid cues about vomiting, it is due to two main reasons:

1) You think it will lead you to feel nauseous, which will lead to you being sick.

2) You think that you will become panicked, out of control or unable to cope.

If you believe these two things, it makes sense why any cues related to vomiting feel scary. However, the fact that these cues do not effect others in this way demonstrates that these beliefs may not be accurate.

The first step in recovering from Emetophobia is to put these two beliefs to the test:

Imagine what your life would be like if reminder of sickness did not cause you any anxiety, worry or nausea. That would be nice right? Well…lets make that happen by the end of the day.

We can achieve this by using something called a “behavioural experiment”.

A behavioural experiment just the act of testing out how true our viewpoints and beliefs are, by changing how we act and seeing the outcome. In this case, we can prove or disprove these two beliefs by facing cues about vomiting in a structured manner and watching the results.

Won’t it be scary?

A little bit. But not as much as you think, and even if you don’t realise it, you are stronger than you think and you can do it. Everyone, including you has a great capacity to overcome anxiety when they truly decide to face their fears. By continuing to avoid these cues you never get to prove to yourself that you can get through it or disprove these two beliefs.

But don’t just take it from me. Watch the video of a real ex-client of mine who had Emetophobia. She has kindly agreed to share her experience of facing these types of cues to help others also have the motivation to overcome their Emetophobia.

So are you ready?

Yes

I specialise in treating Emetophobia, especially if cases where previous therapy has not worked. If you are exhausted from the constant battle against your phobia and its impact on your life, consider looking for 1:1 support.