"We're all born with the capacity to feel as well as to think." "From the earliest age we're shaped by powerful emotions, and fear plays a vital part in our survival." "But when fear gets out of control we call it phobia." "To find out where these fears come from and how to treat them, we'll meet people who suffer sheer terror when they're in the grip of their phobia." "Phobias effect 1 in 10 people." "A phobia is a fear that is out of control." "They effect both young and old alike." "Danny Macionis is 10 years old, his phobia makes his walk to school a daily horror." "Danny believes his fear of dogs stems from a single moment when he was a toddler." "When I was 18 months old I was in a buggy and, em, this dog jumped up at me." "It didn't bite me, but I think, but it scared me." "We learn emotions far more easily than dry facts." "The threat Danny felt at that moment was so efficiently absorbed he still sees dogs as dangerous 9 years later." "When it jumps up I, like, think it's, like, going to bite me and hurt me and attack me." "People say, 'Oh, no, you'll be alright', but I try to think to myself it's not going to hurt me, but I just can't help thinking it is." "Much to his embarrassment, Danny often asks his Mum to take him to school." "Oh, my god, Mum." "It's alright, it's okay." "It's okay, it's okay." "Look!" "It's coming up..." "It's alright." "It's alright." "Please can we cross over?" "It's alright." "It's alright." "Okay?" "Just keep walking, it's alright." "Mum, I don't like it." "Okay?" "She's taking him in." "Good." "Okay." "Okay?" "Yeah." "It's alright." "Alright, you can drop hands now." "Okay?" "I want to be able to cope with dogs because I want to go to school on my own," "I want to go round my mate's house, I want to go round my Grandad's house." "That seems to stop me wanting to go round my mate's house and my Grandad's house and things like that." "Come on Daniel." "Danny's Grandfather has a small dog and finds it hard to understand why Danny is so afraid of it." "Hannah!" "Don't bring the dog inside." "I won't." "Well, make sure you don't." "It doesn't matter whatever size it is, you don't say to somebody who's scared of flying, yes, well, it's only a helicopter, do you?" "If they're scared of flying, they're scared of flying." "Yeah." "Whether it's a great big aeroplane or, em, a light aircraft." "Danny's father has been hoping his phobia is just a phase." "I hope really that he, he'll grow out of it, and as he got a bit older I thought he would, he, he'd learn that all dogs are not bad dogs." "But he's, he's got worse over the years." "He has got worse." "Phobias provoke intense physical responses." "Danny agreed to have his heart rate monitored by behavioural therapist," "Colin Blowers, before and after seeing a dog." "Okay." "First the dog was hidden behind a screen, and at this point Danny's heart rate was 86 beats per minute." "But when he saw the dog," "Danny's heart rate almost doubled as blood pumped to his muscles and his body prepared to either run or attack." "The fight or flight response." "Once the screen went back down" "Very brave well down" "Danny's heart rate was back to normal in moments." "Danny's mother worries that his fear may in part have come from her." "I didn't know whether I made him anxious about dogs." "Big dogs, em, worry me to a degree because of their size." "Being a mother, em, the guilt trip syndrome really that I kept thinking it must be something that I'd done to make him so scared and so petrified." "Although we don't inherit specific phobias from our parents." "We can inherit their tendency to be fearful" "We do learn very quickly to fear the things that have threatened our survival as a species." "We learn by watching those around us." "These babies look towards their mothers for reassurance, and because their mothers appear unconcerned they treat the python as just another toy." "Had their mothers shown fear, the babies would probably also have been scared." "The same is true for other species, monkeys brought up in captivity like this one have no reason to fear snakes." "Their counterparts in the wild however will have learnt to have feared snakes from watching the reactions of other members in their group." "In this experiment the lab reared monkeys watched video footage of wild monkeys reacting fearfully toward toy snakes." "And after just 24 minutes the lab monkeys had learned to fear toy snakes as well." "This proves the fear of objects that are inherently threatening can be easily learned." "Trevor Swales is fearless about most things" "I don't consider myself to be a sort of person that's afraid of many things." "I'm not the bravest person in the world," "I'm no daredevil, no stunt man by any means, but why is it this one particular thing that worries me?" "Trevor's willing to get stung for his love of honey." "But no amount of money will get him over heights." "The fear of falling its as simple as that, just the fear of falling." "Its just with me all the time" "When I, when I'm up high I can think of nothing else but the situation I'm in ah, and all I want is to get out of that situation as quickly as possible." "Trevor works in construction, and his fear of heights is proving a huge problem, since the buildings he restores are usually more than one storey." "He's only really comfortable working at ground level and knowing that his colleagues are happy to work at height effects his self esteem." "I always feel a little bit, little bit inadequate, I really do." "His brother Andy has made a career out of scaling heights." "Trevor's absolutely petrified of heights, and I just, I just thrive on heights." "It doesn't phase me at all, not in the slightest." "When we were kids Trevor was totally different." "Trevor was into wildlife and nature, and I was into going into people's gardens and pinching things and climbing up trees." "Trevor's children Jack and Amy are equally fearless." "I've never actually seen him climb this." "No, well, I never have climbed a tree, not properly." "Maybe one day." "Maybe." "Before I'm too old." "Well, we'd like you to go on roller coasters, yeah?" "On roller coasters?" "Yeah." "Well, that's out of the question at the moment, with me anyway." "You can go with somebody else, but not with me." "Determined to get over his fear of heights," "Trevor has come to a clinic in Munster, Germany." "It's the only place in the world that practises a radical treatment for phobias." "The treatment is called Flooding." "In the Flooding procedure we try to take the, the most difficult item for the patient and expose the patient in the most massive way to this item." "And you get the most, em, impressive results by this way, if you make the patient to do it, yeah." "The common treatment for phobias is gradual exposure, where the object of fear is introduced little by little." "Flooding is the total opposite, massive exposure to the object or situation you fear the most." "For Trevor this will mean going to the highest point in Munster, the Steeple of the Lambertie Church." "Dr. Pawelzik will oversee this part of the treatment." "I think Trevor will feel quite anxious up here." "He could probably hang himself out here, hanging above the height." "I'm afraid that this bar falls apart and, er, in that case, em, my life would have been too short." "So how will Trevor cope if even his therapist is nervous?" "For people with phobias, Flooding means living a nightmare." "The decision to go ahead will be Trevor's, but once made there'll be no turning back." "I've never been at this sort of height before, and I really don't know how I'm going to react." "Uhum." "You are..." "And I'm absolutely terrified now thinking about it." "What you have to accept is that you don't really know what happens." "I don't." "This is the anxiety level." "If you catch the sight of a height, then the anxiety which is, you know, somewhere near zero increases." "Yeah." "Will it increase forever?" "Really I've no idea." "Em..." "The explanation is very, very simple." "It has to do with energy." "You don't have indefinite energy." "Yeah?" "The batteries are empty." "Yeah." "What about the risk of dying?" "What, you don't want a dead Trevor on your hands do you?" "It's not very funny, really." "No, I'm not looking forward to this." "It's, it's great stress." "Yeah." "And for the moment we're quite nice people, but in that situation we won't let you go." "I'm going to put myself through hell." "Very good description." "It's time to make up his mind." "Trevor is given an hour to decide if he will go up the tower." "I don't know whether I want to go through, ahead with this, I really don't." "To be stranded in a sort of, at that height." "To go through all that emotion and that fear, I don't know if I'm up to it." "I don't know." "I really don't know." "People with phobias generally try to avoid what they're afraid of." "But this can have a catastrophic impact on their lives" "Diane Lindblad is from Seattle but she's living in Northern Ireland, her fear of flying is so extreme she hasn't been home to see her family for over 3 years" "My sister wrote me this sort of heartbreaking letter in which she said I don't think you're ever gonna come home again." "And that makes me very sad you know, and I thought my god its gone this far that they think that I wouldn't be able to get on an aeroplane and go home" "Desperate to get home Diane has decided to take a Fear of Flying course." "I think its gonna be good because I think I might learn something but I don't know," "I'll have to wait and see you know." "I think its the flight at the end of it that scares me the most." "Are you nervous?" "Yeah, I thought about getting on to it a number of times but I don't know, we'll see you know." "But I don't like going up and down." "The course is in Manchester only a short flight from Belfast but for now Diane has to use other means of transport" "Hmm, I'm going to Manchester today for my Fear of Flying course and I have to get the train from..." "Down to Dublin and from Dublin" "I have to get the ferry to Holyhead then from Holyhead I have to get to Manchester and that's going to be another 4 hours." "So it'll probably about 8 to 10 hours and em, and that's a considerable journey compared to what is it 50 minutes flying time from Belfast to Manchester" "Diane's phobia has been hard for her family to come to terms with" "When my father was ill last year" "I really should have gone home and he was seriously, seriously ill." "Em, I couldn't make myself go." "And my brother said I don't understand why she wasn't on the first plane home." "Its been a long day but Diane's journey will only truly begin tomorrow." "Trevor has decided to take the plunge." "He's going up the tower." "I can't do any better than my best can I?" "The trouble is on heights that isn't very good." "Jesus bloody wept." "With nearly 300 steps to climb it takes more than 20 minutes to get to the top." "At 350 feet this will be the highest Trevor has ever been in his life." "It's building now, it really is building." "Building, building, feel it." "This is really scaring the (beep ) out of me." "Aah!" "Stop a moment." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Oh, god." "Ooh!" "Okay, how do you feel?" "Please." "Please." "You know how it works, just don't try to control." "Oh, oh, (beep )." "Right, right, right, right." "Okay, we go on." "Step by step, very slowly." "The only nightmare Trevor has ever had has been of falling." "Up here that nightmare seems only too real." "You don't have to take deep breaths, just, just, just..." "I'm just, like, worked up, like, just..." "Just get down here." "Bloody hell fire." "It's more comfortable here." "Oh, much more." "Yeah, it makes sense doesn't it?" "Obviously." "Just, em..." "Aah!" "Bloody hell, what am I doing?" "Because of his phobia, Trevor has always avoided heights." "Now he must resist the urge to avoid again." "It's more the fear of, of plunging over this edge than the actual height." "Yeah." "Then I suggest you to move, er, 5 centimetres further." "Oh, my god." "I want to move because I'm not just backing out of it from my point of view it's my back." "Bee Keeper's back, gets us all in the end." "Kind of these avoidance tricks, yeah?" "We know them." "No, it was, my back was starting to crumble." "No, it was." "I'm not happy doing that, I admit that, but..." "Yeah, that's what they all say." "I bet you don't have many bloody friends." "Phew!" "Hello, Amy Swales speaking." "Hello, Amy Swails, how are you?" "Fine, thanks Dad." "How are you doing?" "Fine." "Today, right?" "Mm." "I had a talk with this bloke, and he's taken me up a big church steeple thing." "Right." "Yeah?" "Mm. 300 foot up." "What!" "What!" "Exactly." "300 feet?" "It is quite an achievement, but tomorrow Trevor will have to face something far worse." "Fear of heights is one of the top 5 most common phobias, and it's not just confined to humans." "Yogi's quality of life is really compromised by his phobia." "Yeah, dog-dog-dog-dog." "Yeah, dog-dog-dog-dog." "Come on, come on, you can do it." "Yogi is a Wheaton Terrier who, just like Trevor, is terrified of heights." "His owner, Susan, would love to see him get better." "Whoa!" "I would love to have him be able to sit by my side out, you know, looking over the mountains." "But he just freaks out every time I try to get him near it." "Yogi's phobia is going to be treated by San Diego animal behaviourist," "Dr. Dennis Fetko, AKA Doctor Dog." "Dr. Fetko has his own radio show where callers can phone in with their problems." "And we go back to the phones right now." "Susan in Del Serro is up next with Doctor Dog." "Hello Susan?" "What's your problem Susan?" "Well, it's not my problem, it's my dog's problem." "Unfortunately it becomes yours, alright?" "Okay, then, put the dog on Susan." "Susan Becker is meeting Doctor Dog at the spot where Yogi has been most phobic." "A building with open staircases and pedestrian crossings." "Thank you for coming up here to meet with us." "Dr. Fetko uses behavioural therapy, and not only with his canine clients, he strongly believes that changing the owners behaviour is just as important." "When I the dog exhibit a phobic response you come to calm me down, comfort me and I may very likely think you are rewarding my fear response." "So my fear gets stronger because it is lavishly reinforced by the people whom mean the most to me." "So not only can owners inadvertently contribute to the beginning of a trauma they can absolutely reinforce it from then on and the phobia gets stronger and stronger because they're rewarding the fear." "We're going to sneak up on that icky thing." "Whenever he avoids the edge, I ignore him." "He gets a lot of praise when he voluntarily comes toward the edge." "Most people would do just the opposite, especially when it's their dog and they're emotionally involved." "When he avoids it you go give a lot of comfort, inadvertently reinforcing his avoidance." "We're going to reinforce all that good behaviour, all that brave boy." "That big brave boy." "Come on big brave boy." "Let's go." "Susan is told only to praise Yogi when he shows no signs of fear." "If she comforts him when he's afraid that will just reinforce his phobia." "What a good dog." "What a good dog!" "Take him to the wall now, give him a little break." "That's it." "He just gave us much more than we had any right to expect, so give him a break." "Now comes the moment of truth, the pedestrian bridge." "With the bridge, which is going to be a major event for him, as soon as he says, oh, okay, fine, let's do this, turn around and come back." "Initially, Yogi resists." "So Susan looks away and ignores him." "As soon as he takes a few steps on his own he'll be rewarded." "There, he just approached you." "Come back." "Good boy." "Yes!" "Yes!" "Good Boy!" "That's all I was waiting for is that one length." "What a hero." "What a hero." "Okay, he just made three weeks progress in 10 minutes." "Look at this, slack lead, looking at the thing that used to freak him out." "And this is in minutes." "Good for you boyo." "So can the same techniques work with people?" "Danny is also having behavioural therapy, and today is his first session." "Unlike Trevor's Flooding Therapy Danny will be gradually exposed to dogs, but any exposure is frightening." "Now don't be nervous will you?" "We'll take everything at your own pace okay?" "Okay, yeah." "There's none about the car park at all." "Do you want to wait out or do you want to get back in?" "I want to get back in." "We'll sit back in till, till everybody gets here, yeah?" "Mm." "Okay." "For Danny today is the equivalent of looking down the barrel of a gun and not knowing whether it's going to fire or not." "He's, he, he could feel that terrified." "Hi, Ruth." "Hello." "Nice to see you again." "And you." "Hi, Danny." "Hi." "How are you feeling?" "A bit worried." "A bit worried?" "Yeah." "How would you feel about standing outside of the car?" "Not too happy?" "I'll be alright." "Okay." "Colin has arranged for a colleague to bring a dog on a leash to a nearby clearing." "Yeah, through the trees there." "He's just, is, is it on a lead?" "It's definitely on a lead." "No problem at all." "This is about as close as I can come I think." "Take a couple of deep breaths." "Can you do that?" "I think I could stay here for a little bit longer." "Yeah, sure, that's no problem at all." "How long has it been since you've been this close to a, to a dog?" "So, so..." "I want to go this side of you." "You can go this side of me." "What, just in case some, one comes down the path?" "How do you feel about moving up a bit closer?" "That's great." "This is as close as I can come." "That's great." "All Danny's senses are heightened." "The fight or flight response he's having is a primal reaction to fear, the product of millions of years of evolution." "An adrenaline rush makes Danny breathe faster and pump more oxygen to his muscles." "His pupils dilate to take in more visual information." "But if we neither run nor fight this adrenaline can simply feel like panic." "Because there are so many other dogs around and that's worrying you, what we'll do, we'll, we'll end the session here, alright?" "We've done really well to get this close to, to Daisy." "And we'll arrange to get together next week and we'll find somewhere where there won't be other dogs to worry about." "Its the morning of Diane's Fear of Flying course and she knows that at the end of the day she must get on a plane." "I've got just ah, less than an hour to go before I have to go over to the airport and go to the class, so I will enjoy that part I think and hopefully it will be reassuring talking to the pilot and just talking to other people" "if I get a chance to." "I'm not looking forward to the flight." "Em, I haven't slept for over 2 nights so I'm very emotional and very tired." "But I look forward to just sort of getting on the plane and going through it" "The wings are the shock absorbers yeah, and we build them to be flexible to act like shock absorbers because if they weren't it would be jolly jolly uncomfortable." "But the size of the wing will make that wing lift and we can lift 400 tons." "This Fear of Flying course is aimed at taking the mystery out of how aeroplanes stay in the air." "A practical approach that uses some behavioural therapy and a touch of Flooding at the end when the course members will be encouraged to take a short flight" "Should there be any problem, they've got enough control using the other controls to overcome it." "But this, this technology is absolutely wonderful." "Em, now." "Diane is just 1 of millions of people who are afraid of flying." "Its been very hard just sitting here but I think I'll go through with it today." "Dane hasn't been on a plane for 3 years, now she's facing her worst possible fear." "No everybody's been fine its great, its great." "As Diane battles with her anxiety one man is overwhelmed with panic." "The plane is stopped and he is taken off the aircraft." "Its time for takeoff the moment of truth." "When we were taking off I kept saying I don't wanna do this again," "I don't wanna go through this again." "But I can't take that attitude, I I I just know that it'll just be self defeating so I have to just make it through the" "After half an hour Diane is back safe on the ground." "She's made it." "But will she able to take the long flight home to Seattle" "My first instinct is to just say I don't wanna get on another plane, but I think I'm just gonna have to keep fighting that, so I don't feel like its its a small victory, but its not done yet." "There's still hard work to do." "Don't run away." "That's fantastic that's fantastic you've been marvellous, yes you've been marvellous, don't run away." "Ok" "Back in Germany it's Trevor's second day." "He doesn't know where he's going, but he does know he probably won't like it." "Hopefully keep my self-control, maybe not quite so much bad language." "Today it's Doctor Pawelzik's colleague, Ankar Brosco, who is Flooding Trevor." "We have a television tower in Dusseldorf where the special thing is that you have a huge glass pane where the patient almost can, can lie down on and, you know, you have more than 100 metres of nothing below yourself," "and it's really a, a strong anxiety inducing situation for almost everyone." "The bad language is going to come back, I can feel it." "Oh, (beep )" "This tower is about 100 metres higher than the steeple Trevor climbed yesterday." "Move back a little bit." "Am I allowed to keep my hands on there?" "Or do I have to my hands off?" "Never." "It's okay if you leave your hands there." "I need a little bit of avoidance." "I can keep my hands there forever." "Fine." "You keep your hands there forever." "Just put them away when you want it." "Okay?" "I'm going to put them back at the moment." "Trevor's battle with anxiety has begun again." "I do not want to do this." "I am going to absolutely (beep ) myself." "Try to concentrate on what you're fearing." "Like this glass..." "I'm fearing leaning on the glass and the glass goes and I just go head first..." "Yeah." "That's... (beep ) It's just my nightmare, you know." "Sorry, avoid, I can't, I can't, I can't go on like this" "Okay, Trevor, it's no problem." "No problem." "It is a problem." "You've done so well." "But if he gives up now, Trevor knows he may never conquer his phobia." "For the last 3 days I suppose it's been nothing but anxiety, constant, constant anxiety, and it's just..." "You've done really well." "You stood there for quite a while." "But I've got to do it though" "20 minutes later Trevor's ready to try again." "I'm just touching my nose, right?" "Where's the anxiety now?" "6. 6?" "I'm going to leave snot all over this window." "Oh, I've done it, I've done it." "I find that very, very unpleasant, but I've done it." "I even put my body weight against it." "Yes." "Yeah, look, I've done it twice, see?" "Two marks from my nose." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Later that day Trevor will have further horrors to face" "Since their invention more than 20 million people have died at the wheel." "In America car crashes are the leading cause of death amongst the young." "While driving phobia is still far less common than a fear of flying it is on the increase..." "Donna Ferstand hasn't been able to drive for over a year." "Any time I feel anxious in any other area I'll say to myself, well, what's the worst that can happen?" "You know what, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to, you know, nothing's going to happen because of this, and that calms me down." "But in a car it doesn't at all, because I think, like, well, the worst that would happen would be I would faint and crash and die." "Donna is unable to drive without having a panic attack" "Sometimes when I used to drive on the highway" "I've had as many as 5 panic attacks, and it might be just 1 long panic attack but I pull over onto the side of the road and I calm myself down and just you know kind of berate myself for a few minutes." "And then I get back on the highway and it happens again, and I have to pull off again." "Donna knows that if she could conquer her phobia she and her family would have much more freedom" "I would be able to take my son and go out of the city for the day, and I could drive to the beach, I could drive to my parents house," "I could, I mean it would just, it would just open up a, a whole array of opportunity that I don't have now." "But for now Donna's fear is too intense for her even to consider those opportunities" "The noise in the car starts to blend together, and that's, and that's the first sign for me that I'm having a panic attack or that I'm starting to have one." "I start getting even more anxious because I can't control it, and I start getting very, very hot, my hands are freezing, em, I can't take a deep breath." "Everything is just clenched, and I pull over to the side of the road at that point." "Donna's going to try a treatment known as EMDR," "Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing." "Its completely different from either Flooding or Behavioural Therapy" "With my patients I do this." "When I first heard about it I thought it was total nonsense." "I mean it is, on the face of it it sounds absurd." "You wave your hand back and forth in front of someone's face and they're supposed to get better." "EMDR involves getting the patient to move their eyes from side to side, which can be very taxing, for the therapist." "Those of us doing this process, when we're moving our hand hundreds of times a day, start developing tennis elbow, bursitis in our shoulders and so on." "So fortunately some guy in Colorado invented that machine which makes the work much, much easier." "World-wide more than 25,000 therapists practise EMDR." "Initial research results have been overwhelmingly positive." "So how does it work?" "We don't know." "There's a lot of research that demonstrates that we process intellectual material in a different part of the brain than we process emotional material." "So what happens is we can know something in one part of the brain and we can believe it totally, but in a different part of our brain we can still have a very strong and negative emotional reaction." "What EMDR seems to do especially well is connect what we know with what we feel." "Donna's session will last an hour." "As her eyes follow the green light she'll also hear a corresponding beep in the headphones." "As she follows the light," "Donna is asked to remember the last time she had a panic attack while driving." "With emotional memories when they are brought to the surface, the reason they are so painful is because it doesn't feel like the 5 years ago or 20 years ago, it feels like they're happening right now." "And for reasons we don't understand, EMDR makes them feel further away." "After an hour Donna seems much less disturbed." "It's really not upsetting at all." "I just found it amazing that it was almost like a, like a switch to turn." "Like if I had something upsetting inside or something that I couldn't release it was almost like you turn on a switch and then everything comes out, and then you switch it back off." "And then I calm down." "And I, I was able to really get into that and let things come out because I knew that I could just raise my hand and have it turned off." "So, will the mysterious magic of EMDR cure Donna's phobia?" "It's Danny's second treatment session." "Today there's a lively Labrador at the end of the garden." "Alright?" "How's that?" "Okay." "How anxious?" "About 5." "About 5 on that scale." "So it's gone up a bit?" "You still want to keep moving forward?" "Well done." "That's brilliant." "Danny has never touched a dog." "His goal is to stroke the Labrador." "Right." "So where..." "That's as close as I can go." "That's fine." "So that's about as close as we got with the dog first time wasn't it?" "He looks quite lively doesn't he?" "Give me a score as to how anxious you are." "4." "Okay." "So even just in the few minutes we've been standing here your anxiety's come down a little." "Want to move a bit closer?" "That's good." "Well done." "Can you tell me what level of anxiety you've got now Danny on that scale?" "About 3." "About 3." "Want to try and move in a bit closer?" "I'm going to touch him." "You're going to touch him?" "I think I am." "I think I am." "Brilliant." "Don't forget to breathe while you're doing it." "He's too playful isn't he?" "So how did you feel while you were doing that?" "While you were stroking the dog?" "I felt a little bit worrying." "But I was alright." "I thought it was unbelievable." "I was totally shocked, I thought..." "What, did you." "What, did you expect me to go and stroke its head and stroke its back and pick up its tail?" "I never expected you to get that close, not so soon." "And to feel..." "Well, I would." "And it looked as if you felt comfortable what you were doing." "Mm." "I thought you did really, really well." "Very proud of you I was, you did really well." "Okay?" "Yeah." "Hello?" "Hi, Dad." "Hello." "Yeah, look, I'm, I had my treatment today." "Oh, yeah?" "How did you get on?" "Yeah, I got on really well." "Yeah?" "Yeah, em, I picked up its tail." "Yeah." "Yeah, I stroked it's head." "Yeah." "Tickled its tummy." "Oh, that's alright ain't it?" "Mm." "Eh?" "So how did you feel about it all?" "I was a bit worried, but I was alright." "Trevor is facing fresh challenges." "Oh, (beep ) it is." "Jesus wept." "Here we go again." "When I walked round that corner and I saw a fire station," "I thought there's only one thing we're going to do here." "They're going to send me up on a bloody, a table ladder." "And that just sent me, it just knocked me for six." "I was having a really good morning, done well I thought, really achieved something this morning." "And then I thought the whole world just fell apart at me." "My dad was a fireman for 31, 32, 33 years." "Never thought I would get to go up in one of these bloody things." "Remember the feeling when you first looked at this TV tower?" "Remember how scared you were?" "Let's give it a try shall we?" "It's, it's the same thing you had before." "When you think, okay, you just don't want to do this any more." "I try to remind you once more to think and try it again." "And if you say no, we'll go down." "I can't promise anything." "I promise nothing." "No." "You don't need to." "I promise nothing here." "You don't need to." "This is really, really (beep, beep, beep )" "Okay?" "Yeah." "Okay." "So look down, see us moving." "Yeah." "What the hell happened there?" "That thing is tilting." "That's, that's okay.." "Is that natural?" "What's, what's the worst?" "Terrified." "For (beep ) sake." "Yeah." "You tell me when to stop, okay?" "Have you ever done this before?" "No." "That's great." "That's all I need." "So it's two of us doing it for the first time." "Yeah." "We've really got to keep our cool here haven't we?" "Yeah." "And not worry?" "Love to come up here every day?" "Not to worry." "Oh, my god, there we go again." "Oh, oh, oh." "You've reached the top." "That is well done, okay." "Oh." "Oh." "Oh, Jesus wept." "The wind's getting up." "Yeah." "We are swaying up here." "We are a bit." "We are swaying." "Do you know what we have to do right now?" "Do you?" "I'm imagining falling, I'm doing all that, I'm doing it, ooh." "Please that is enough, take us down Ankar, please." "Yeah." "Please just stay, stay a little longer." "No, the wind, the wind, I hate that wind." "Just a little longer." "No, I don't find it comfortable." "Please!" "I'm going dizzy." "I think I'm going to be sick." "Don't dizzy." "Look at that spot." "Don't move your eyes too quick." "The whole lot is moving." "Ankar I'm losing it." "Please take me down." "No, take me down, down, down." "Okay." "Down." "Get out of that wind a little bit I might feel better." "Yeah." "I'd just really love to go for a beer right now." "Yeah, you have that tonight, okay?" "A beer and a fag." "Never, ever in my life did I think I would ever go on a turntable ladder, ever." "That is the hairiest thing I've ever done in my life." "Shows what a sad life I've had maybe, but it's..." "Although only briefly," "Trevor has achieved what he had thought was impossible." "Congratulations." "Oh, congratulations?" "You've done well." "Well, I don't feel as though I have really, because I never completely settled to that." "No matter how unsettling it is, facing up to a phobia is nevertheless a great achievement." "Fear exists as a survival mechanism, but a phobia is a fear gone wrong." "For a phobic person, overcoming their fear or at least learning to live with it is the first step to a fuller, freer life." "I reckon I could do it on my own..." "You do, off you go then all yours" "Oscar, come on Oscar there's a good boy now, no not this way, this way" "I thought it would take a lot lot longer" "It can do sometimes." "I mean we've been working in a way." "that Danny's just been keen to play with dogs." "And you know what the next question he's gonna ask you don't you" "Yes quite can I have one as a pet." "Yeah, come on, run, run." "You like running?" "So do I." "After 4 sessions of Behavioural Therapy," "Danny is no longer afraid of dogs and is even able to enjoy them." "Donna's EMDR treatment was a success and for now its given her back her freedom." "Although she managed the short flight back to Belfast Diane has still not flown home to see her family" "And Trevor, he's catching a plane home in just 2 hours." "To see if Flooding has helped him he's revisiting the steeple." "My hands are sweating, my mouth's dry, my legs are shaking." "Yeah." "Okay, just..." "I'm clinging to this handrail and this centrepiece like..." "Yeah." "I'll try and relax my grip a bit, yeah?" "Just relax my grip." "I'm focusing down on the ground." "Okay, brilliant, brilliant." "I'm relaxed a bit." "My anxiety level has dropped considerably." "Trevor has learned that anxiety fades and that success comes from waiting out the panic before moving on." "I've been Flooded alright." "I've been to hell and back." "Hell and back." "But I've also been magnificent haven't I?" "Yeah." "Magnificent." "I'm nowhere near completely cured." "I don't know whether I ever will be, I'm always going to have anxious moments." "I'm never, ever going to be good at heights." "I'm never going to be a steeplejack, I'm never going to be a fireman, oh, I wouldn't want to be." "And even if after all this I'm no better on scaffolding, god have I achieved, have I done things." "Things that were, like, nightmare stuff I've lived that nightmare," "I've been there." "I'm terrified" "People with phobias will try almost anything to get cured." "In this programme we'll be looking at the treatments available and which ones are known to work." "Jacqueline Kelly has been terrified of birds and feathers for as long as she can remember." "For years she's been desperate to find a cure for her phobia." "I went to see my doctor, and I asked him if there, there was anybody that he could send me to." "He looked at me as though I was crazy." "He told me to go to the library and get a book about birds." "He also told me to get a bird table and put it in the garden and watch the birds landing on it." "Em, as I tried to explain to my doctor," "I mean, do you honestly think that I haven't already tried these things?" "If it was as simple as that I would have done it." "Jacqueline has agreed to be wired up to a heart monitor to see exactly what's happening to her body when she sees a feather." "Her normal heart rate is about 80." "But when she sees a feather her heart races in a typical adrenaline fuelled response to extreme fear." "As her fear mounts she starts to sweat." "Using a thermographic camera which measures heat we can see this happen." "To begin with, her face and her scalp are glowing red, she's anxious but in control." "But after seeing the feather there's a dramatic change." "Her skin, particularly on the scalp, becomes white hot." "It makes me feel every emotion you can imagine all mixed up." "When a reaction is so intensely unpleasant it's not surprising that phobics go to any length to avoid this terror." "Do you think Mummy would like this one?" "No." "She would scream." "She would scream?" "Yeah." "Would she?" "Jackie spends little time outside the house." "My Mum, she does lots of things with Angelina." "So feeding the ducks I would probably like to do but can't." "We go shopping in Manchester where there are pigeons all over the place." "We, we run in and out of buildings, em, to avoid them." "She'll stand backed against a wall until we shoo them away." "If they come anywhere near her she goes hysterical." "People look at you as if you've got somebody simple with you." "Last year when we were on holiday, em, in Tenerife I took Angelina to the beach building sandcastles." "We'd not been on the beach 5, 10 minutes and a pigeon..." "One pigeon landed." "It was probably about 100 yards away from us, but I couldn't stay." "I couldn't even find the time to tell her what was going on," "I just upped and legged it." "Ran back to the hotel." "And it wasn't until I got back to the hotel that I realised, god," "I've left my child on the beach." "She's only 3, she's there on her own." "Apart from being frightened of the birds and feathers, my biggest fear is something happening to my daughter because of me." "Clinical psychologists believe that there's only one way phobias like Jackie's can be cured." "There are no miracle cures." "In the end, what you've got to do is you have to work through the problem." "You're not going to be able to avoid your way out of a phobia." "And a lot of therapies on the market are offering just that." "You can avoid as a way of getting rid of your phobia, it's obviously nonsense." "I want to know why?" "Not everybody's frightened of feathers." "Where has it come from?" "Why isn't my sister frightened of feathers?" "Why is it me?" "Feeling fear about something as beautiful as a bird or its feathers might seem hard to understand, because neither are dangerous." "But the potential for certain phobias seems to be hard wired into our brains." "A fear of snakes is very easy to trigger." "However, feathers and birds are not inherently dangerous." "Jackie's and many other phobias are almost certainly a conditioned response to a traumatic event in childhood." "The fact that people can be made phobic was rather cruelly proven in the 1920s." "At the start of this experiment little Albert was clearly not afraid of animals." "But then he's deliberately frightened with masks and loud noises." "Soon he learns to associate fear with animals, soon he's terrified of them." "People with phobias try to avoid the object or situation of fear." "When your phobia is public places, avoidance isn't that easy." "Carmine Mattioli has been agoraphobic since he was 19." "He hates being more than 5 miles away from home, and unlike Jacqueline Kelly, he can pinpoint when and why his phobia began." "First time I remember being anxious, the worst anxiety attack I had," "I had a house, I had a wife, I had a daughter, and I just woke up and realized I had all this responsibility." "I look back at it now and I think that's exactly what started it off." "Agoraphobia is one of the commonest phobias." "It's a fear of fear itself." "A fear of having a panic attack in public." "This has meant taking holidays was almost impossible for Carmine and caused problems with his family." "We want to go on holiday, but deep down inside as it got closer and closer to going on holiday," "I would feel like I was going to my doom." "What if I don't feel good?" "What if I want to go home?" "What if I get struck in traffic?" "And then we would get to our destination." "As soon as she would unpack my bag I would say to her I want to go home," "I don't feel good, I want to go home." "Joanne Vice also used to be phobic." "She was housebound for 5 years, but now works as a phobia aid." "Using a form of behaviour therapy she's hoping she can help Carmine overcome his fear." "But she knows from personal experience agoraphobic can be very tricky." "Sometimes I could be waiting for them and they just don't show up." "And I will make a phone call and I'll hear every excuse that you can possibly think of, and some that you wouldn't believe." "But I used to use them myself, so I'm on to everyone." "Manhattan is the scariest place for most phobics." "Especially if you're agoraphobic." "It's like that Alice In Wonderland syndrome when you feel very small and everything is very big." "If Carmine shows up, Joanne is hoping to get him onto the Statton Island Ferry." "It'll be crowded, he'll feel panicky and he won't be able to escape." "Carmine knows this, which is why he hasn't been on it in 30 years." "I took my wife out on the Statton Island Ferry many years ago and it was romantic and it was beautiful and it was nice." "I'm not married to my wife any more, and I wouldn't say the phobia was the only reason, there was other reasons." "But it, it was hard for her." "It's, er, kept her from doing a lot of things she wanted to do, because I wouldn't let her do things on her own either." "I wouldn't let her go on, on holiday alone with my daughters because I would, didn't want to be alone, you know, who did I have, you know?" "Er, you know." "There he is." "Hey, what's going on?" "How you doing?" "Alright, I suppose." "Something uh?" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah, I'm" "So how high are you now?" "What are you feeling right now?" "About 5." "You're at a 5?" "But you're here." "Yeah." "Yeah." "That's terrific." "That's terrific." "Joanne gauges Carmine's levels of anxiety by using a zero to ten scale, where level ten is unbearable panic." "Well, if we go over on the Statton Island Ferry, okay, fine, we get over there, I'm not going to come back." "Exactly." "So now, but if we don't come back and I've got to turn around, we've got to get in a vehicle and we've got to go across the Gaptols Bridge up the New Jersey Turnpike to come back which..." "Look what you're doing to yourself." "What?" "You have to stay in the present." "We're here, we're iin White Plains and we're going to have a lovely day." "Think of it as an adventure." "Ah, it's a wonderful day." "Accept the fact that you're going to have levels." "Yeah." "That's part of why we're doing this, is to get used to feeling uncomfortable and knowing that you can do it even though you're uncomfortable." "And that's, that's what's important." "My concern is feeling trapped, I don't like feeling trapped." "And, em, you know," "I haven't gone on the ferry in a long time," "I don't even know what to expect on a ferry." "Back then it was a nickel, then it went to 50 cents, now it's free." "Why are they letting you ride it for free?" "There's got to be something wrong with it." "Good phobic thinking." "Good phobic thinking." "I say, why are you letting me ride this ferry for free?" "You're going to get out of it what you put into it." "If you're willing to get out there every day, one of the doctors we work with says a minimum of an hour a day, you're going to see how much progress you make." "I've seen people recover completely." "By completely I mean able to function even though they have some level." "Carmine's levels continue to build as he gets closer to the ferry dock." "Right." "Because I want to get it done, I want to get it over with." "Right." "At this point you want to get it over with?" "Right." "The further he gets from home the more anxious he becomes." "Downtown New York is bad enough, but the ferry will be much worse." "Okay, there's the entrance." "You already have a plan, you don't have to white knuckle it, you don't have to grin and bear it, there is something that you can do." "First of all I'm with you, so that's safety in another self, you're not alone." "I don't think it's all that crowded." "If you get to the point when you can get here by yourself and you've started to have levels without me, what would you do?" "I won't be here by myself" "Here's the people coming on." "It's too crowded." "But we're going to let them all go." "Let them all go." "Always think of the movie, the one" "No." "Was she going to Statton Island ferry she comes, she lives in Statton Island." "She comes off the ferry, she goes to her..." "I'm not doing it." "Uh?" "I'm not going?" "Why?" "Too many levels, that's all." "Now let's stand and rest a minute." "Do you want to rest a minute?" "As soon as he turns away his anxiety drops, his panic begins to fade." "Unfortunately all this will do is reinforce his phobia." "If I do it, I do it at night." "I won't do it during the day, it's too crowded." "I'm not doing it." "Right, let's talk about how you're feeling now." "What I'm feeling now?" "I don't see any purpose to do it." "It's not the time." "It's too much to do in one day?" "Ah, it's too crowded." "I'd rather do it late at night when it's a less crowded." "Are you going to be very disappointed in yourself?" "No, because I came down here." "I did, er, 75% of it." "Carmine knows the origins of his phobia, but many psychologists doubt that just knowing why is enough." "Jackie is not keen to expose herself to anxiety, which she knows would happen in behaviour therapy." "She's trying an alternative cure." "I am absolutely open to anything, because it's, it's so desperate now, you know, it's a, a feather duster, it's duvets." "Right." "Tell me a bit about the duvets." "Yeah, but it's full of feathers." "Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't have one in case a feather slipped out, is that it?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "Does part of you recognize that that's irrational?" "Oh, yes." "Right." "My theory about phobias is that, er, something happens to you er, usually when you're very young, but it could be later on in life." "And the incident is so traumatic that you're conscious mind can't handle it." "But the incident itself, the memory of that goes into the subconscious." "I want you to imagine that you're walking along a beautiful palm fringed tropical beach with white sand and a clear..." "Using hypnosis," "Costa Lambrius is trying to recondition Jackie's subconscious fear responses." "You are determined to relax whenever you see a bird or a feather and remain cool calm and in complete control." "Now listen very carefully." "Concentrate on my voice." "During session 3, Jackie had a flashback." "A long forgotten childhood memory of a bird trapped in her grandmother's house." "To find out if these memories are real she's off to see her grandmother." "It was just going all round the house flying anywhere." "It was scared, the bird was more scared than we was." "But you was terrified." "And they, well, where would I have been when you picked the feathers up?" "Was I upset?" "I don't know." "You can't remember can you?" "35 years ago?" "Would you remember who picked the feathers up?" "No." "No." "No, probably not." "But, you see, my Mum can't even remember." "Your Mum wasn't there." "I know, but Mum can't remember my, my coming home and saying, oh, god, when I was at my Nanny's today and, er..." "Well, you'd be too scared to say that to Mum because you was a very, very quiet child, very quiet." "One of the quietest children I ever knew." "Scared to death she was of a..." "off a bird." "I wonder why?" "I don't like them, but I'm not that afraid." "So will knowing why help Jackie to get cured?" "The chances of success with Jacqueline, I believe, are about 80%." "And this is based on I've got a good reputation, but also my experience in dealing with phobics." "Em, even though it's a phobia that I haven't encountered before, it should run along, em, standard lines." "And, er, I'm hoping that it's going to be a, a very successful outcome for Jacqueline." "Every time I've been going to see him I've been quite excited that this end result it's going to be fantastic for me." "And now today's come and it's my last session and I don't want it to be my last session in case it hasn't worked." "I'm really frightened." "3..." "Let the beach scene fade away now." "4, 5, 6..." "As you come up and begin to return to the room, 7, 8, 9... nearly there, and 10, you can open your eyes coming all the way up." "This tape is recorded by Costa Lambrius, all copyright reserved." "Feel like I need to get outside and see what happens to me." "Yeah, I mean, to me that's perfect." "The ideal thing for you now would be to go outside and be with birds." "And see what happens to me." "Yeah." "Shall we do that?" "Yeah, there's a Magpie there." "And normally how would you have felt?" "Aaaah!" "Oh, great, so..." "Honestly." "I mean, I don't, I don't know, I mean," "I'll have to wait until there was like pigeons around my feet." "I mean, the, the Magpie flying across there I," "I would have had to watch it and check it out and, and I'm not doing that." "Right." "Feeling confident they try the front of the building for more bird sightings." "There's one." "He's just poking his head above the, em..." "It's flying off now." "No, no, no!" "Oh, no!" "Oh, god!" "I'm never going to get rid of this." "Don't give up hope just yet." "I have." "It's just, I don't know." "I don't know what to do." "A fear of feathers is very rare." "Fear of public speaking, however, is one of the most common phobias." "Well, if you look back in the history of human beings we find that the sense of survival depended on the sense of acceptance." "And, truthfully, if you were not accepted in the core of the small group in the village, how far back should we go, in the cave, if you were not accepted, you were rejected," "it was literally life-threatening." "You were put out." "Well, this kind of very deep-seated fear, if you will, sense of rejection is hard wired into human beings." "Yes, the first time I've ever even stood at the podium in front of the church, and it, it's a very frightening feeling, em, to look out and, at all the, you know, at faces and people and..." "How do I look?" "How will I sound?" "Will I have the right answers if somebody asks me a question?" "In Boston, Dennis Becker is pioneering a form of behavioural therapy that softens the impact of being flooded with a real phobic experience." "Kathleen is hoping it will work for her." "The longer you stood there how did it feel?" "It became more comfortable." "A little more comfortable?" "But there was still nobody out in front of me." "Nobody there." "Right, right, right." "You know, that's why I don't know how comfortable it will be standing there." "But it did, it became more comfortable." "This is the same thing that's going to happen with you at church." "They've come there to be inspired, right?" "I'm going to watch where you are on the monitor, so you, put your headset on and let's see what happens." "Yeah." "By wearing a virtual-reality headset," "Kathleen will be able to practice speaking to a virtual audience." "Alright, we're going to bring some people in." "Are you ready?" "Let's bring them all in." "Here we go." "Virtual reality looks like a cartoon." "The characters, the setting, it looks like a cartoon." "One of the things we discovered in our research was that if you made it real it was too scary." "Filling up now." "Go ahead." "Good morning." "I'm Kathleen and I've been asked to speak to you this morning regarding our annual, our upcoming, excuse me..." "It's a place where young, unmarried, pregnant girls take their..." "Dennis is able to adjust the intensity of her audience, and gauge Kathleen's anxiety." "...one of the biggest decisions in their lives." "A number?" "5." "Okay." "Go ahead Yeah." "Yeah?" "Right." "But a decision that will be with them and, in fact, the rest of their lives." "Ah, they liked you." "Very good." "They liked it." "Yeah, right" "You started at 6, went to 5, went to 4, same thing's going to happen in church." "And I noticed that your breathing was changing." "Uhum." "And you were controlling it more." "That's what was important." "It remains to be seen whether virtual reality will help Kathleen to do the real thing." "In Norfolk, England," "Christine Keeler struggles daily with the feelings of terror she has about mice." "She too feels that any form of behaviour therapy will bee too traumatic." "Nothing could persuade me to touch a mouse." "Nothing." "If somebody put a cage there full of mice, with a million pound in the middle," "I could no way, even if I could keep it I just couldn't take it out." "And as much as I need that money I could not take it." "I just couldn't." "Nothing would persuade me." "I'd be in there like a shot." "That's the worst thing, thinking about therapy." "There's only one way of finding out if you could isn't there?" "Yeah." "I know." "That's got to be like hell." "Living in the countryside means every nook and cranny of Christine's house has had many mouse visitations." "I have to use this to get the tea-towels, but I don't like it, because when we had a mouse in the house there were some mouse droppings just down there." "And I don't like that cupboard either." "Christine's fear of mice is matched only by her passion for the pigeons she and her husband show." "Their daily handling of these birds is something" "Jackie Kelly would find totally abhorrent." "Those dirty birds, they're just disgusting." "There's nothing to be afraid of than a feather, is there?" "I could pick a mouse up rather than a pigeon." "That would not be a problem." "If I sat in a room and somebody let a load of mice out, I think I would die." "I really think I would just stop breathing and I would die." "Christine and Jackie have come to the Institute of Psychiatry in London to take part in an unusual research project." "You really do at times think that you're going crazy, though, don't you?" "So it's the actual feather, not the bird?" "It's both." "I can understand a bird if it's flapping around you, because that, that is, you know..." "But the feather is as bad as the bird." "And I don't understand how you can have your pigeons." "But I can now say the word mouse, but I can't type it, I can't," "I can't write it, I couldn't write it down." "I can't write it down." "Have you had a look at this scanner?" "No." "Do you know anything about it?" "Oh, they've drawn me a picture of it and it doesn't seem quite so bad." "They've both agreed to take part in a brain study, the first of its kind ever to be done, to try and see what actually happens in the phobic brain when exposed to their object of terror." "Now, what we're going to be asking you to do first of all is to go into the, the scanner and stay in for just about an hour." "And during that time we're going to be asking you to look at different types of picture." "Now, some of the pictures you're going to find a bit disturbing, they're going to be pictures of mice or birds and feathers." "When we're looking at the pictures that we don't particularly like it's possible that we might let out a scream or a (GASPS ) you know." "All we can say is that I understand that's going to be a problem." "but if you can try and keep your movement and the gasping to a minimum." "But we understand, I mean, it's not an easy thing to do, and well done for, for being brave enough to, to, to come, come and volunteer to go in the scanner." "So, as I say, it's only going to be a few of the pictures which are going to be distressing." "I think the first one is of..." "Doctor Phillips gets Christine to grade her pictures." "Now, I'm just going to show you very briefly one of these, and if you want to stop we'll stop, okay?" "This is not, this is still a picture, it's not a real one." "That's enough." "That's enough?" "Okay." "The MRI scanner will record what happens inside Jackie's brain when she's frightened." "But before they start recording, Jackie starts to panic." "Either the claustrophobic scanner or the thought of the pictures of birds and feathers were too much for Jackie." "So, will Christine be able to cope." "Hello Christine, it's Mary again, can you hear me?" "Yes." "Great." "How are you doing?" "Fine." "Great." "Well, the pictures are going to come up fairly shortly, but before they do you'll hear about a minute of noise." "The first pictures are innocuous and shouldn't bother Christine." "Although the birds and the feathers would have been a problem for Jackie." "I think she'll probably be okay with the neutral ones." "Well, let's just see how she gets on..." "As she looks at the pictures, the scanner is constantly analysing the activity in different parts of her brain." "How are you doing?" "Fine." "The next series of pictures would upset most of us, and scientists have already recorded the brain's reaction to normal fear." "But this will be the first time phobic fear will have ever been isolated." "Christine is about to see mice." "Okay." "You did extremely well." "Christine's brain scan shows something very interesting." "A normal fear reaction involves the amygdala, the primitive part of the brain." "But when Christine was terrified by the mice there was a surge of blood in the hippocampus, which processes emotional memory." "This unusual brain activity should change when or if she's cured." "In the light of this discovery Christine's suspicions as to where her phobia began seem likely." "My first memory of a mouse is when my mother accidentally cooked one" "Obviously it was in the, in the oven before she put the pie in, but when she pulled it out there was this shrivelled mouse at the back of..." "For Christine, like many people with phobias, the idea of a cure that won't involve any exposure to the object of fear is very seductive." "She's heard about just such a treatment called Thought Field Therapy, and it can even be given over the phone from California." "I have doubtless treated more people than, by far, than any other doctor in history." "Not any other doctor today, but in history." "And maybe more than all of them in history when you think about it, because I found I could cure most of them within minutes." "In Norfolk, Christine wants the miracle to work for her." "Dr. Callahan." "Hello." "Hello." "Is this Christine?" "It is." "Well, it's very nice to talk to you Christine, and I hope we can help you with this, er, fear of mice." "This is going to sound kind of silly, but this is the most powerful approach I've ever seen in my life." "Take two fingers and I want you to go just about an inch below either one of your eyes." "Yeah." "Have you got that?" "I've got that." "Okay, now I want you to tap there, gently but solidly 5 times." "For, for what?" "Pardon?" "To do what?" "I want you to tap." "Tap, yeah?" "5 taps right below your eyes." "Done that?" "Yeah." "Dr. Callahan's claim is that if you tap on the body's accupressure points while thinking of your phobia it will have miraculous results." "Now, I want you to tap there 5 times." "Yeah, but I'm holding the telephone." "Thank you for reminding me of that important fact." "That's alright." "If you hold the phone with your shoulder and then, er, tap 5 times." "Keep tapping and now we're going to activate your right brain," "I'm going to ask you to hum a little tune, just a couple of bars." "I don't want to do that" "After 15 minutes of tapping, Christine is asked to look at a picture of a mouse." "Yeah Christine?" "Yeah, I've found one." "Good." "Good." "Now, how do you feel about looking at the pictures?" "It's still a 10, you don't want to see that picture?" "I'm sorry?" "No, I don't like it." "You don't like it?" "No." "Er, we have here, er, what we call a very complex phobia, surprisingly, because this would do it for about 8 out of 10 people." "Can you hear me?" "Okay, I just don't see where I was getting anywhere?" "Can you hear me?" "Christine?" "Sorry, I can't hear you." "Dr. Callahan operates on a no win, no fee basis." "If he can cure the phobia it's $3,000." "He persuades Christine to try something else." "Now, I want you to wrap that towel around you." "Do you mind doing that?" "Wrap it around me?" "Yeah." "Like a, up around your neck." "I want to try to block out the T-shirt." "Hang on." "The T-shirt is toxic." "Dr. Callahan thinks Christine may be allergic to a T-shirt, and this could be interfering with his treatment." "Have you got it, got it real well covered so the T-shirt, you're not going to be breathing fumes from the T-shirt?" "I can't smell the T-shirt." "Pardon?" "Yeah." "Do you want to continue?" "Not really, no." "Yeah, I didn't think you did." "Her clothing is toxic." "Do you know what that means?" "If she'd want to continue I might have to have her trip all of her clothing off before the day is over, you know?" "Putting a towel round my neck, that just seemed ridiculous." "That finished it really." "I did go into it with a positive attitude, but after about 10 minutes of it it just feel as," "I couldn't see where it was getting anywhere." "Just couldn't see where it was getting anywhere at all." "The sensations that phobics feel during a panic attack are caused by an adrenaline rush." "But the same symptoms are felt by thrill seekers." "It's simply a matter of how one interprets these symptoms." "Beth Smith hates the sensation she has on a roller-coaster." "Her son Jake loves them and remembers the last time he persuaded his Mum to join him on one." "Took her on and we started to go, and the ride started going, and I checked over at her, and she was hyper-ventilating, she was..." "And I asked her are you okay, are you okay?" "She went Shut up Jake, shut up." "We got off the ride and I thought she was going to kill me." "And she let out a scream as we were waiting to go into the station, a blood curdling scream like, Aaaah!" "Aaaah!" "Like really loud, and everybody turns around and looks at her, and then, em, we got off and she said she'd never do it again." "In Orlando, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Mike Otto, uses behavioural therapy to convince a group of roller-coaster phobics in just one hour to change the way they think, so that the physical sensations they feel do not need to be negative," "and could even be enjoyable." "So shortness of breath or even dizziness don't have to be viewed as an ensuing heart attack, but with different interpretation could mean exhilaration." "Keep it going for a bit." "Good, and stop." "Phobic reactions are terrifying, no matter what the source of the phobia." "And sometimes people find one fear more understandable, and they say, oh, I could imagine having that." "But it's important to remember that regardless of the source of the fear, how it feels, the sense of danger is very real and is the same." "For the phobic, learning how to deal with the physical sensations of an adrenaline rush can have significant impact on their lives." "Clearly, getting on a roller-coaster isn't a life or death predicament for them, but the theory is the same." "So can you all hear me?" "This is going to be good." "I want to hear some screams out there." "Whooo!" "It's the same old feeling but I'm going to look at it in a new way." "I feel like I'm going to the moon." "So, has Beth managed to change her attitude to roller-coasters from phobia to fun?" "I'm not an enthusiast just yet." "I have to keep working on it a little, but it doesn't terrify me." "It doesn't terrify me." "It doesn't terrify me at all." "People get so desperate they will try anything, and the trouble is they don't know how to separate out the things that are useful from things that aren't." "So they will tend, people will often tend to choose things that offer help without, without confrontation." "Avoidance hasn't helped Jackie, and she's finally decided to face her phobia head on." "She's going to see a clinical psychologist to try behaviour therapy, the only option left if she wants to show her daughter the outside world." "So today is like, almost like the end of the road for me." "This is the last thing, em, that I can try." "So, birds, feathers." "Birds, feathers." "Any type of?" "Any type of bird, any type of..." "Professor Paul Salkovskis specializes in behavioural therapy." "He believes he can change the way" "Jackie thinks about birds and feathers in just one session." "So what you're saying to me is you would very much like to get over this problem?" "Yes Okay." "Even if it involves coming in contact, yeah?" "This is the bit that scares me." "Mm, true, it's the scary bit." "But you're already suffering so much anxiety from this that actually, you know, I suspect that you've lived the worst anxiety you could experience time and time and time again." "So it wouldn't be any different to what's already happened, just this time it would be for a purpose." "So I'm saying that's the choice, am I prepared to confront this, or would I rather just carry on like I am?" "Yeah." "I, it, I want somebody to wave a magic wand and it all to go away, and it's not going to happen." "This magic wand it's, it's got feathery bits on it." "I'm wondering what you think is the worst thing that will happen?" "Feel like I'm going to die." "I'm going to die." "You're going to die?" "So your feather's not the fear is it, dying's the fear?" "You're not afraid of feathers, you're afraid of dying." "The worst possible fear is not feathers, the worst possible fear is losing it, dying, not seeing, not seeing your daughter grow up, you know, all the things that go with that, okay?" "Now, I'm telling you that that's not what's going to happen, that you're not going to die." "But, you know, I'm saying that also I don't expect you to believe me on that." "I don't expect you to believe me on that." "But what you have to do is you have to find out." "So I kind of need to know whether you want to go the next step?" "The next step being showing me a feather?" "That's a feather." "Mm." "I can't." "I can't." "It's only a very small feather." "Paul is very persistent." "Jackie has agreed to look at a feather." "I'd be very interested to know what's going through your mind as we, as we do this, okay?" "Okay, it's coming out now." "Yeah, alright." "Okay." "There it is then." "Okay?" "I'm going to put it down now." "Oh, God!" "Just tell me what's going through your mind just now Jackie?" "I need to go." "Okay, Jackie." "Out of a hundred what would..." "I'm terrified." "Right." "Out of a hundred where is it?" "Where is it?" "A hundred." "A hundred." "Stay with it then." "Okay, now what's going to happen, I'll tell you what's going to happen, what's going to happen is the anxiety will come down." "Remember that your thought is that it goes up till it just keeps on going up and up, okay?" "And I said you need to discover that that's not actually what happens, what happens is it comes back down again." "Now, it's actually coming down a lot more quickly than you expected isn't it?" "Yeah." "In fact you can't believe it can you?" "Yeah." "That's good." "This is something, this is something you told me you were certain would kill you." "Now, in fact, I think you're discovering that you're wrong, that actually that death is not, that this actually can't kill you." "And you smiled." "For a woman who was going to lose it, for a woman who was going to go completely bonkers and was going to die, yeah, you had a very, you gave me a very nice smile." "I think this is as good as it's, it's going, it's going to get." "Okay." "Ready?" "Yeah." "I'm going to move everything round slowly and controllably, okay?" "There we go." "Moving across, moving across, and there it is." "Okay?" "Out of a hundred?" "So my holding it is worse?" "Yes." "Because you can put it near me." "I promise you I'm not going to do that." "Oh!" "Keep, keep, keep going." "Tell me when..." "Keep it going?" "Keep." "KEEP GOING!" "No, stop now." "Okay." "Stop now, stop." "Okay, I've stopped." "Stop." "Okay." "Brill." "People often say I've had it for so long, how can I possibly ever get rid of it, you know, in, in a hundred years let alone, you know, a couple of hours." "And the answer is you can, the answer is you can." "You're getting quite bored with this feather aren't you?" "What I'll do is I'll just peel it off and take this off and put it back in its little envelope." "Okay?" "Uhuh." "Then we've got a very romantic feather." "It's coming your way, is that alright?" "Right." "Okay." "Romantic feather, which I'm going to take down." "I know what's happening here." "What?" "What's happening here is you're thinking I'm not worried about this, so that's going to make me touch it." "I'm not." "No, I know you're not going to make me do anything I don't want to." "I'm not going to make, I'm not, yeah." "So what do you want to do here?" "Am, hmmm." "Okay." "Again." "Being in, being in control of it is the name of the game." "Oh, god!" "Stick with it." "I know." "It'll come down." "I know you're there when you're actually taking control in this kind of way, you know." "But you, you picked that up, I didn't ask you to pick it up." "No, I know." "You picked it up." "I knew I was never going to get home today unless I'd picked this up." "I never ever imagined in my wildest dreams that I would ever in my life sit here holding a feather." "Ever, ever." "Right?" "Yeah, but it did take nearly 45 minutes." "Wow!" "45 minutes after 37 years of it." "Like Jackie, Christine also finally took the plunge and had behaviour therapy." "Pages and pages of the word mouse." "How many times in total did you write this?" "I think it's 24,720." "Which was the worst one?" "That was the worst." "After writing the word, then looking at pictures," "Christine finally faced the real thing." "Today she is cured." "I can't relate to how I felt before." "I think back to the things I've said, and I know that when I said them I meant them a 100%, and I felt so strong about them." "And now I can't feel like that." "And since her success she's had her brain re-scanned." "When she sees a mouse now there's no change in the hypocampus and no sign of fear in her brain." "The phobia is gone." "I feel, now I'm over it, it's the best way to show everybody that I've conquered my fear." "I feel that by putting it there I've contaminated myself now for the rest of my life, so there's no way I can go back to being the way I was." "No way." "You see, that thing is too crowded, I can't deal with it like that." "Here comes the other ferry." "Carmine still hasn't been on the Statton Island Ferry." "The wharf is so crowded today." "You see, that's another thing, I don't know, maybe it's real." "That's my thinking," "I don't know Joanne, is it phobic, is it not phobic, what is it?" "It's phobic." "How?" "Typically phobic actually." "You know, I mean, but I have no desire." "It's phobic." "It's phobic." "Joanne has persuaded Carmine to try the ferry again." "They've booked another session." "Virtual reality has helped, but Kathleen hasn't yet given her speech in church." "Jacqueline Kelly has finally made her daughter's dream come true." "For the first time they've been able to feed the ducks together."