The fear of being sick or of seeing someone else vomit, emetophobia, is one of the most common types of phobias.  

Few know what it is called, but many suffer with this fear which grows to take over your life and that of those close to you.

Emetophobia is a complex fear that  determines where you go, what you eat, who you are around and saps you of any other focus.  It also often brings Panic Attacks and depression, and it is often only at the point of hopelessness people with Emetophobia look for help.

TREATMENT

At CBT-I & CBT Psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), are used to take your life back from emetophobia. Through cognitive awareness of how emetophobia talks to you, and the assumptions it makes when there is doubt, we start to remove the fuel that keeps emetophobia present.  Asking for reassurance, limiting long trips, checking foods for safety etc.  are means by which emetophobia has you behave in ways to give it 100% certainty things are not going to make you sick and that you will be safe.  But these behaviours also teach your brain that there is danger, fuel the fear and slowly taking over every bit of your life in the process.   Catching emetophobia in its game, working with any physical complaints or panic symptoms, especially stomach aches, we reframe the beliefs and shift away from safety habits that make you feel better for an hour or two, but make emetophobia worse.  Changing how you respond to fear, and even triggering it to train the brain to feel confident that it does not need to avoid being sick. 

This is hard work.   And this hard work will get your life back