NLP Fast Phobia Cure

This article describes the basic NLP Fast Phobia cure pattern in NLP that was originally created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. It is mentioned in its original form in the book Frog to Princes, originally published in the year 1979. NLP Fast Phobia cure pattern is quick, and can be easily used with clients and tested. If you are looking for NLP Fast Phobia Cure script then read more about the pattern, and the script.

A lot of people can’t even think about hurts, traumas, unpleasant realities, and many such things. The troublesome memory often re-traumatises them, and they cannot think about it without going into negative painful emotional state. It activates all sorts of distressful unpleasant, and negative emotions—especially fears and phobias. Additionally, it robs them of an important resource, that is the skill of thinking comfortably about unpleasant events. Consequently, reality pains them and they repress, suppress, deny, or avoid it.

The NLP Phobia cure pattern is truly a transformational and revolutionary discovery in this regard. It changes the Cognitive – Behavioural approach of people, and allows them to examine the situation from a dissociated perspective, without triggering an extreme emotional response.

Moreover, the NLP Fast Phobia cure pattern completely changed how a lot of professionals were doing psychotherapy. By using a simple metaphor like watching a movie, the helping professionals could take the emotional charge out of any old memory that would throw their clients into a phobic response state.

So, here is an article providing you the details of the NLP Fast Phobia Cure script, and the pattern usage.

To learn and practise more of such useful NLP techniques, consider attending an NLP Practitioner Training Program.

Overview

In the field of NLP, this pattern is also famously known as the V-K (Visual – Kinaesthetic) dissociation pattern. And, in the book User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume II written by Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer, this pattern is referred as The Movie Rewind Pattern, and is essentially in most of the good NLP training programs.

It is used for all kinds of things like phobias, PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), traumatic memories, strong over-emotional reactions to things, “buttons,” depression, anxiety, etc. And the central process used in this pattern is running the mental movie backwards.

As you use this pattern on your own memories and the things that could ‘push your buttons’ to create a lot of negative emotional charge about things, it transforms you as a person. You can signal your body to stop thinking as if you are actually in the trauma again. Thus, you are able to stop the ongoing re-traumatisation, resolve the pain, and release the old memories to get on with living your life more abundantly and positively. NLP Fast Phobia Cure is probably one of the most watched NLP techniques on Youtube.

How does NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern work successfully?

Generally speaking, there are two ways in which you can process any piece of information as you think. Either you can process the information experientially or you can do so analytically.

There exists a fine distinction between both these ways of information processing.

When you recall something experientially, you feel as if you have once again entered into that situation or imagination. You see things from out of your own eyes and ears and feel things as if from out of your own body. On the other hand, when you recall something analytically, you take it from a spectator’s point of view. Metaphorically, you hold the information at “arms length”.

Simply put, in the first instance, you step into the content of the story and in the second, you step out of it and take a global view from outside it as a spectator. You see it as someone else might or to see it from a third and neutral position.

Each of these ways you choose to look at things has its share of strengths and weaknesses. Your emotional responses, after all, are all about the way you think. Recalling something experientially, for instance, empowers you to know the details of the event.

In contrast, recalling things analytically allows you to learn from it. Also, it does not activate the emotional responses. When your emotional responses are not activated, you do not become an emotional cripple or hysterical. You are able to think more clearly and responsibly with balanced emotional reactions.

Relating back to the topic, the NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern works successfully because it teaches you how to think comfortably about the unpleasant events. It allows you to recall things analytically, and move your mind and understanding to an evolved frame-of- reference.

Steps of NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern

Here is a step by step description of the NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern. You can try it with yourself to run your brain in such a way that you can take out the negative emotional charge of an old memory that throws you into an unresourceful state.

In case you experience difficulty, then find a well-trained and qualified NLP Master Practitioner or NLP Coach who can then facilitate this process with you.

Step 1 : Identify a mental representation that bothers you.

Recognise the thought that activates strong negative emotions inside you, or the idea that pushes your buttons and you go into a fight-flight stress response by just thinking about it or considering it. Alternately, pin point that specific memory of some unpleasant experience or even traumatic experience that puts you back in that event as it were happening again.

Then, decipher it in terms of what you see, hear, and sense. In other words, identify the visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic features of the memory or thought that you are playing in your mind.

The following questions will help you-

What do you see? Is it coloured or in black-and-white?

What auditory sounds are you aware of? What words are you saying inside yourself, or what words from others do you hear around you?

What sensations, temperature (cold, warm, hot), pressure, movement, etc are you aware of kinaesthetically?

Notice how you have coded the movie visually, auditorially, and kinaesthetically. Do it so that you can gain the ability of playing around with these codes and altering them to enhance your life and emotions.

Step 2 : Use the movie metaphor to make an internal representation of the troublesome thought or memory.

Imagine that you are ready to watch the old movie of your troublesome thought or memory in the theatre in your mind, and you are going to watch it for the last time.

See yourself sitting comfortably in the tenth row in the movie theatre and take a spectator’s point of view to that old movie.

Then, place a black-and white picture on this screen of your mind. This black and white picture will be of the younger you fifteen minutes or so before the traumatic events or the unpleasant situation occurred. The movie up on the screen is freeze-framed right now. The snap-shot represents something that occurred 15 minutes prior to when unpleasant things happened. Be aware that you have taken a spectator’s position to that younger you. You are looking at it from outside. Now sit back to watch it, and get out your bag of popcorn or whatever you best like to eat when you go to the movies. In a little bit you will watch this particular movie for the last time.

As you have gained a psychological distance from that event, you have started the process of running your own brain. So, you can feel absolutely delighted that you have the ability to step aside from your thoughts. You are definitely much more than your thoughts and the experiences that you have been through.

Step 3: Become ready to be the Editor of your own movie

As you sit there waiting for the movie to begin, make alterations in your coding to feel more relaxed. Bring about those shifts in these codes that enable you to think comfortably about that old memory. And notice the growing sense of distance and control this gives you, and how relaxed you feel as you.

Notice the visual distinctions whether you have the picture is in colour or black-and-white, it is bright or dim, close or far. And as you make these distinctions, choose which coding will enable you to think comfortably about that memory.

For example, dim the picture of your unpleasant memory and just notice the effect that it has for you. Turn down the brightness further, and further, until it doesn’t bother you anymore. Then send the picture off into the distance.

Recognise the feelings and sensations that the person up that on the screen feels in his or her body. Notice the intensity, weight, pressure, and temperature of those sensations. And, check out the auditory system, that is the sound track of your memory. Pay attention to the sounds you hear coming from that movie. Identify the quality of tones, volume, pitch, and melody of the sound track you hear. Check out the language system, and pin point the specific words you hear from that younger you. Notice the tone, volume, and location from where these words are coming. Identify the specific way of coding the experience that will help you stay resourceful and thoughtful in a relaxed and comfortable way.

Step 4 : Float to the Control Booth.

An important step of the NLP Fast Phobia Cure pattern ~ Before you begin watching the movie in the theatre, in your mind, there is one more thing to do. Imagine floating out of your body from the tenth row of the theatre, and float back to the Projection Booth. Feel your hands on the plexiglass window. Then, look out from the plexiglass window and see the back of your head facing the screen.

In other words, as you stand in the projection booth, notice your adult self ready to watch the movie of your younger self in sometime, for the last time. Take a moment to experience and enjoy this unusual and different point-of-view.

And as you note the adult you sitting in the theatre, let yourself also see beyond that to the still black and white picture on the screen. Take your time as it may take just a little bit to fully imagine seeing your today’s self watching your younger you on the screen before the movie begins to play.

Watching this may be strange and weird the first time, but you will get used to it very soon. In case you feel a bit dizzy at any time, put your hands on the plexiglass again and feel safe and secure inside this control booth.

You are safe in the control room. This is the place to remember that you are in control of the movie. You can stop it or fast-forward it at any time that you wish.

Step 5 : Finally, play the old memory for the last time.

Whenever you are ready, you can turn on the movie from the Project Booth, and let it move from the initial snapshot.

Play it as a black-and-white movie right now, and watch it from a double-perspective— one as an audience sitting in the theatre, and another as a control room person from the projection booth.

Watch the movie from the beginning to the end in fast-forward. After all, you know what had happened. Let it play out a bit further, beyond the unpleasant experience until a time when the bad scene disappears, and that younger you is in a time and place of safety and even pleasure.

If at any time, the movie tempts you to step in— feel your hands on the plexiglass and stay safe and in control in the control room.

End the movie in the scene of comfort when you were feeling good about yourself and having fun doing something — at a park, on a beach, with a loved one. This later time need not necessarily be close to the time of the trauma, it can be some time later when you were enjoying yourself and feeling good about yourself.

Once you have gotten to that place of comfort and pleasure, stop the movie and freeze frame the picture again.

Step 6 : Step in and rewind your movie from the pleasure backwards.

In some time, rewind this memory movie in absolutely fast rewind mode. This next step is a big one, and is the heart of the NLP Fast Phobia Cure pattern. So wait until you get all of the instructions about how to do this.

Float inside the scene of comfort and pleasure, and be there. See and hear what you would see and hear when you are there in the scene, and feel the comfort and the pleasure in there. Once your comfort level reaches to 7 or 8 on a scale of 10, then push the rewind button. Rewind the movie backwards very, very quickly.

As you rewind the movie in fast rewind when you are ready, experience the rush and confusion of sights as everything goes backwards. Hear the sound of running the movie backward and recognise the jumbling of sounds as everything zooms back to the moment 15 minutes prior to the unpleasant movie.

Just as you would have seen movies or videos running backwards, you will be rewinding the movie backwards at a very fast speed. All the people and their actions go backwards as you experience this fast rewinding. You also walk and talk in reverse as everything happens in reverse, like rewinding a movie.

Please note: This step will occur in just a moment, and when it does, you will experience super-fast movements. You will take only two-seconds, and you will be inside the movie when you rewind it all the way back to the beginning.

Step 7 : Repeat the rewinding process multiple times.

When you arrive back to the snapshot at the beginning as mentioned in the previous step, wipe clean the screen in your mind. In other words, take a break, open your eyes and look around.

Then, go to the scene of comfort and pleasure at the end again, and as soon as you see and hear it fully, and feel comfortable in it, rewind the movie even faster at 10x speed.

Do this over and over, at least five time. Each time, let the rewind speed go faster and faster. Allow your brain to become more and more proficient. Do it until the rewind takes only a second each time.

Step 8 : Test the final results.

After you break state from this exercise, call up the original memory and see if you are getting the full weight of the emotions. Try as hard as you can to step into the scene and check if the feelings are back.

Additional editing tools you can use in NLP Fast Phobia cure pattern:

From the act of stepping back from experientially thinking about a fearful or hurtful event to watching it as a spectator, to imagine watching it from a projection booth in the control room, you can do all kinds of things. You can rewind the movie and take the emotional charge out of the experience. You can also do many other things to change your codings. colour them according your evaluation of them.

Listed below are some additional editing tools that you can use in this NLP Fast Phobia Cure pattern:

Alter your sound track: You can also add tonal qualities to the sound track to make it better. Listed below are a few ideas-

Put some nice loud circus music on to the unpleasant memory while watching the movie again in fast rewind. It might make you feel the same way you feel when you see the old Charlie Chaplin movie and hear the circus music in background. Try your best to put humour in your It is said that laughter provides a great distancing skill. When you use your humour, you can laugh the emotional pain off.

Rework the way you hear yourself and others talk, and make the voices different. Imagine the hurtful person talking like Donald Duck. Turn the villain in movie into a cartoon character who has exaggerated lips, head, eyes, hands,

Add the voice of someone else you would like to have heard or install an internal voice to help you through this situation and make the memory less intense. Apply your spiritual faith, and use your spiritual belief system to bring in a Guardian Angel, a loving heavenly Father, or some strong resource. Split your screen and see through the eye of your faith, the Guardian Angel hovering over the earthly scene of your See and hear your Angel caring and loving you. Perhaps you hear statements like ‘I am with you,’ ‘I will help you,’ so on and so forth.

Alter the symbolic code of the memory: For example, make all the people transparent in your memory so you see through them. Or maybe could colour code them according to how you think and feel about them. Draw a line around the three-dimensional persons in your memory, and make them two dimensional.

Associate a resourceful memory: Recall a resourceful memory. Think of a time when you felt creative, confident, powerful, etc in the past. See what you saw at that time and turn up the brightness and colour on that memory so that it invites you to fully associate into it and experience it now. Once you feel it fully as a resourceful state—bring into it the scene or the negative stimulus that has been fearful to you. Now, merge these two memories, and integrate them until you experience yourself handling the negative resource or situation using the resources from the more positive memory.

Wrap up:

The NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern or The Movie-Rewind Pattern offers an incredible technology to people to recover quickly from trauma states and the post traumatic stress disorders. It enables and empowers people to learn how to think about unpleasant things without re- associating and re-experiencing the situation.

To recapitulate, the NLP Fast Phobia Cure Pattern in NLP works by enabling you to move to a different frame-of-reference, that is the spectator viewpoint. Doing this interrupts your trauma thinking and allows you to view the painful information from your past comfortably. Subsequently, you feel safe even when you recall the unpleasant and

distressful memories. You remember old events as a spectator to those experiences—as if you were a movie goer, just watching it, rather than as an actor in the movie.

When you learn NLP patterns and practise using it, you can effectively manage strong negative emotions. You can switch off any scene that you don’t need to play anymore in your inner theatre. You can process the information in a way whereby you do not collapse into a negative emotional state. You can also learn from your past rather than using your past to feel bad about.

NLP proved that the subjective experiences are created by the coding you use. And, when you change that coding, you change your experience at the neurological level. This leads to a change in your emotions and behaviours.

NLP Fast Phobia Cure