Fix your Phobia in 90 minutes

Fix your Phobia in 90 minutes

Fix Your Phobia in 90 Minutes is the ultimate self-help book for those who want to overcome a phobia - whether it be spiders, birds, heights, confined spaces, blood, injections, water, storms, and many others.

Phobias are the most common and easily treated psychological disorders but are often undiagnosed. One in four people suffer from a phobia, and they rarely seek treatment. Instead their Phobias can be annoying, frustrating, and ultimately detrimental to one's well being and ability to function in society.

The good news is that because specific phobias are a learned behaviour (often developing in childhood in association with a traumatic experience) they can be un-learned.

In his new book, renowned psychologist Anthony Gunn provides accessible and practical exercises and offers a genuinely simple solution to fix your phobia in 90 minutes.

Written in an easy-to-understand style, Fix Your Phobia in 90 Minutes shows one how to successfully treat any phobia in 90 minutes through a series of positive and simple steps.

Beyond fixing phobias, these steps will also enable anyone to apply their newfound confidence to other areas of life such as job interviews, dealing with difficult people, parenting and business.

Why did you decide to write this book?

Anthony Gunn : Yes, I suppose the thing for me was in regards to Phobias, unfortunately there is a lot of scams out there. In that, people promise to fix it in ways that are Scientifically not proven; for an example hypnotism, listening to CD's, healing crystals, acupuncture, certain pills and potions. These will not directly fix the phobia. I am not dismissing them, because they can be useful for other things, but when they claim to just fix a phobia, for example an elderly lady rang me and wanted to purchase some CD's to help cure her phobia. The CD's were over one thousand dollars, that is why she came to be, because she couldn't afford them and she would have to have taken the money out of her savings. I just though 'this isn't right, morally'. That was a big motivator for me.


How is it possible to fix a phobia in 90 minutes?

Anthony Gunn : I'm not here to keep secrets hidden, the more people that know about this the better, I think. It basically is, the same thing with the phobia, a person will go to great lengths to avoid the thing in which they are scared of. In regards to dealing with the phobia, I am helping them face their phobia in a controlled environment and then using certain psychological tools. The main thing is to exposing them to their phobia, the right way. That is where the success is.


What is the most common phobia you treat?

Anthony Gunn : The top three phobias are: 1. Snakes, 2. Spiders and 3. Heights. That is generally across the board and is mostly what I see as well. Interesting things is we are pre-disposed or hard wired to fear these animals or situations. A fear of heights starts at about nine months of age and a fear of spiders and snakes starts at about two years of age. You can see little kids, under the age of two, and they will be there playing with, during experiments, large pythons or be around spiders, they won't be even, they try to chew on them almost. It is amazing to watch, when they get to about two the fear kicks in.


Is this because they have seen on the television or seen their parents being scared of these animals or situations?

Anthony Gunn : Yes, all phobias are learned. We are not actually born with them. There are three ways they are learned on is through direct experience. Imagine being bitten by a dog, so then you are scared of dogs. The second way is watching, so you watch someone being bitten by a dog, or an anxious parent around a dog. The third is through media, that could be watching things on television, such as the hit movie Jaws (galeophobia) or Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock (ornithophobia). Also what can happen is phobias be developed through gossip and rumors. That is another good way of developing a fear. People say in regards to spiders "You should have seen the size of the huntsman I saw, it was HUGE" then others are scared as they stretch the truth, so to speak.

Why do you think most people don't worry about fixing phobias?

Anthony Gunn : A lot of people think there is nothing that can be done and that they were born that way. The main thing with the phobia is that those that suffer from a phobia have a black belt of avoidance. Which means they won't confront the fear and will go out of their way to avoid it, as long as they are not in contact with their phobia, they are fine. They have learnt to ignore anything to do with it.


Do you have a success story to share?

Anthony Gunn : I had one mother, a lady, with two young children, her phobia was spiders. After being successful tested she burst into tears because it had been impacting her life so much. She was driving along the freeway, with her two children in the back, asleep. A huntsman spider climbed down the front of the windshield and she just slammed on the breaks and leapt out of the car, into the incoming traffic, then raced over to the other side of the road, then realised she had left her two children in the car. She could have quite easily killed herself and her children, so it was a problem.

Phobias do affect peoples life, big time, most people think 'it'll be right' but it can be absolutely debilitating. Believe it or not, most people with Phobias don't even know what it looks like. For example, a spider. As crazy as it sound, reason being, people that have phobias of things, say spiders, they see it and then straight away look away, they can't actually look at it. As a result, they sort of picture it and put together the pictures in their own mind, this is where the imagination takes over. For example, one lady I treated for a fear of rats thought they had big fangs, big hawk claws and pointy noses.


Anthony Gunn is a registered psychologist specialising in treating anxiety and phobias. His own experience with phobias began as an eighteen year old while on exchange in Honduras. He awoke to find that he was having trouble breathing and was rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a collapsed lung and given ten minutes to live. Anthony was hurried into emergency surgery in an operating room with blood splattered on the operating lights from the previous patient. Due to the critical time constraints, the nurses pinned Anthony down while the doctor performed the operation without anaesthetic - a life changing experience.

Realising a profit could be made from Anthony's Australian insurance company; the doctor kept him hospitalised for another six weeks and performed another operation - one to remove the tube that was placed during the first surgery causing Anthony's lung to collapse for the second time. Anthony would often awake to find an intoxicated doctor pulling at his tubes and poking his stitches. He would later discover that his tormentor did this because Anthony didn't show any emotion - a cultural misunderstanding, as it is common for Honduran men to cry.

Anthony was finally rescued by a North American medical team who operated on him en route to Sydney, where he was rushed to hospital and underwent a fourth and final surgery.

The traumatic ordeal left Anthony with such a debilitating fear of medical procedures that he could not enter a hospital, or be given a needle without passing out.

Anthony decided to take control of his phobia by training to be a psychologist and successfully cured his own phobia with the methods outlined in his book, Fix Your Phobia in 90 Minutes. He is now dedicated to helping others overcome their own fears and phobias. His unique and friendly counselling approach has helped many people successfully manage conditions ranging from: panic attacks, phobias, social anxiety and shyness, to performance anxiety for athletes, performers and public speakers.

Fix your Phobia in 90 minutes
Penguin Australia
Author: Anthony Gunn
Price: $19.95