More than 10million people in the UK suffer from phobias – an overwhelming and irrational fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. While the exact cause is unknown, many are linked to a particular incident or childhood trauma, and others are learned responses developed early in life from a parent or sibling.
A type of anxiety disorder, phobias can cause heart palpitations, nausea, panic attacks, dizziness and shortness of breath, and often have a debilitating impact on people’s lives and can be triggered by almost anything.
Well-known phobias include agoraphobia (fear of open spaces or crowded places) and arachnophobia (fear of spiders), but have you heard of ovinophobia (fear of sheep) and octophobia (fear of the number eight) and haphephobia (fear of being touched)?
Now, a groundbreaking new Channel 4 series, The Fear Clinic, sees 18 patients with extreme phobias check in at a specialist centre in Amsterdam to undergo a radical new treatment, which claims an 85% cure success rate in just 48 hours.
The Memrec method works by altering a patient’s emotional memory – changing how they react when they see their fear. Dr Merel Kindt, who pioneered the treatment, explains: “We confront people with what they fear, then interfere with the re-saving of the memory during sleep.”
We spoke to three of the patients who faced their worst nightmare in the hope of being cured.
‘I thought clowns were monsters’
James McGill, 38, from Dublin, works for Google as a media strategist. He has suffered from coulrophobia, a fear of clowns, since childhood
A trip to the circus is an exciting treat for any child, so when 10-year-old James McGill’s parents took him he couldn’t believe his luck. Unfortunately for James, when a clown unexpectedly squirted him in the face with water, it sparked a lifelong phobia.
If a clown appeared on TV, he immediately switched channels and as an adult, when friends invited him to their children’s birthday parties, he made excuses not to go in case there was one there.
“It sounds innocuous, but after being squirted with water I became so scared of them. I’d trusted this clown, then he’d humiliated me,” James explains. “I couldn’t read their faces – I didn’t know what was going on behind the make-up.”
As a teen, James saw a TV programme about American serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Known as the Killer Clown, he murdered 33 people, but performed at children’s parties in his spare time. James says: “After that, even if I just saw a picture of a clown I’d tense up.”
James decided to tackle his coulrophobia after a terrifying health battle which saw him diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. “I didn’t leave hospital for a year,” he recalls. “I needed the most nuclear form of chemo available, which almost killed me twice and my weight dropped to 32kg (five stone).”
James now uses a wheelchair but is learning to walk again. “I’d conquered so much, but this stupid thing about clowns was still in the back of my mind,” says James of his decision to seek the help of the specialist Amsterdam clinic. “I’ve got a maths degree and I’m used to having everything make sense and this was so illogical.”
He found being exposed to a clown at close range at the clinic terrifying. “I thought I was going to have a panic attack,” he says. Afterwards he was given a beta blocker, which slows the heart and blocks the action of hormones like adrenaline. This altered his fear memory and was re-saved in his brain.
The next day he met the clown again. He says: “I had perceived clowns as monsters, but he wasn’t – he had a wife and two kids. We both cried and hugged. If anyone had said to me I’d have ended up hugging a clown I’d have laughed. Now I’ve realised that I can do whatever I set out to do.”
‘I’d walk away from my children if they were sick’
Chloe, 37, a payroll officer from Newcastle, has suffered from emetophobia, a fear of people being sick, since she was three
When Chloe became a mother, she felt she’d found her calling. But any time her children became ill she found herself compelled to run in the opposite direction. “Once my eldest was sick in the car and I got out and walked to avoid it,” she admits. “The hardest thing was her saying: ‘Mummy, I want a cuddle’ but I couldn’t.”
Chloe’s phobia stemmed from hearing her own mother being sick behind a hospital curtain after having her tonsils removed. “Then, when I was a student on a night out I wouldn’t get the bus home in case anyone vomited. I’d book a taxi, even though it was costly.”
More recently, nights out with her partner have been terrifying because of her fear that if people get drunk, they might be sick. “We’d go out for a meal at 7pm so I could get back early,” she says.
At the Amsterdam clinic, Chloe was forced to confront her worst fears as a woman was sick in front of her. “I’ve never had to face it before. I could have run, but I forced myself to stay – I felt I was doing it for my children.
“I was distraught. It was like this spewing monster. I tried to block out the noise, but it felt like it went on for ever. I felt pure panic – I didn’t want to see it, I didn’t want to hear it, I didn’t want to smell it.” Yet the next day Chloe approached the room with a completely different mindset.
“I was ready to face my fear,” she explains. “I’m naturally someone who likes to help people, so I passed her a tissue and rubbed her back. It was like they’d put a magic spell on me. I even held the bucket afterwards. I didn’t enjoy it, it’s still sick at the end of the day and it smelled disgusting, but I wasn’t scared – the anxiety had gone.”
When she got home, one of Chloe’s daughters developed a stomach bug. Chloe says: “This time I sat with her. I was so proud. I felt like a mum – like I was doing everything I could.
“I’ve spent 30 years running away from this. I’d even got off trains if someone had a coughing fit because I was scared that they might throw up. “When I think about it now it seems so ridiculous, but that used to be my life.”
‘Children’s parties would leave me in floods of tears’
Ollie Gibbs, 26, a civil engineer from Leeds, has suffered from globophobia, the fear of balloons, since he was a child
When Ollie Gibbs and his family were invited to the first birthday of a friend’s child, his own children could not wait. They arrived to find the party in full flow, the room filled to bursting with balloons, and while his children enjoyed their afternoon, Ollie couldn’t even go in. “We’d driven two hours to get there. They all went inside and I sat in the car. It was the final straw,” he says ruefully.
Ollie’s globophobia began during childhood. “At a party at the village hall they suddenly released all these balloons and I felt like I couldn’t escape. Ever since then I’ve never wanted to be anywhere near balloons. It was mainly the sound of them popping, I perceived the bang as danger. If I came across balloons I’d get sweaty palms and a racing heart and suffer brain fog. All I would think was: ‘How do I get out of this situation?’
“Even if they were uninflated, I’d just stare at them until I could get away.”
When Ollie became a dad himself, he realised his phobia was impacting his life. “There were children’s parties nearly every other weekend. If there weren’t balloons, they’d be given party bags with balloons in them, which I’d have to remove. If they were offered balloons at fast-food restaurants, I’d never let them take them.”
Ollie had previously tried counselling to deal with his phobia, but nothing helped. When he arrived at the Amsterdam clinic the enormity of what he’d signed up for sunk in. Faced with hundreds of balloons he began to cry.
“It was absolutely horrendous, I panicked,” he says. “I felt silly too. It’s an irrational fear of a children’s toy that won’t hurt me. I’m somebody who will happily walk into any room and start a conversation, but put me in a children’s party and I’m in floods of tears.”
On the second day Oliver cried again, but this time for a different reason. On this occasion he was even able to hold a balloon and pop it himself. “It was the end of one life and the start of another,” he says simply. “When we used to get invitations for parties, I’d spend the weeks leading up to them stressing and panicking. It was all I could think about. Now that’s gone.”
■ The Fear Clinic starts on January 21 at 8pm on Channel 4
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
