Hemophobia, blood phobia, fear of blood, whatever you call it, can be a major problem in the lives of sufferers. Broadly called blood-injury-injection phobia is a relatively common phobia and we’ll look a little bit at the treatment options.
A phobia, unlike a fear, is an unconscious response to a feared stimulus which causes dysfunction for the person. To differentiate from a fear, the phobia is often so intense that the sufferer will go to great lengths to avoid seeing, hearing or even thinking about the issue.
As you can imagine, a fear of blood can be a major impediment in a person’s life. There are many times or situations when you may be exposed to blood and having a phobic response every time often gets out of hand for the sufferer.
People with hemophobia and fear of needles will often avoid medical appointments out of fear of what they may be exposed to. They will avoid routine vaccination and blood testing, putting them at higher risk of long term health complications.
How does treatment for blood phobia work?
EXPOSURE THERAPY! It sounds so scary, right? Well that isn’t the intention at all. Blood phobia (hemophobia) is treated through the exposure to the feared stimulus in a controlled environment. In order for treatment to work it is important that the treatment does not get to a point where the sufferer is being traumatised by the treatment or that they feel significantly uncomfortable.
To work through treatment safely, the sufferer is taught coping skills, learns about their phobia and what triggers it and only when they are comfortable with this do they start to actually work on exposing themselves to the stimulus in a very slow and guided manner.
Treatment of blood phobia can be difficult to engage with, as the sufferer often thinks ‘I will do that one day’ but that day never comes and they are constantly exposed to situations that trigger their phobia. As a result I have developed a Blood Phobia Treatment course which I will be launching very soon on this website. If you would like to be informed when this course becomes available, please join the mailing list below.
So how do I get over my fear of blood?
As mentioned above, you can sign up for the mailing list to be notified when the course goes live, but I often take the treatment of blood phobia as a long term approach rather than something that needs to be dealt with immediately. Hemophobia, if you aren’t working in the medical field or have a medical issue, is often something that you can address in your own time.
Treatment – what works for blood phobia?
As noted in a 2004 research paper, blood phobia is ‘the neglected one‘ when it comes to treatment options and research. I thought that I might have a look at some of the findings of research for blood phobia and to look at what seems to work and what may not work. I will also look at some of the clinical presentations of blood phobia and how it may present.
- Several studies show that syncope (fainting) is far more likely to occur in people with blood phobia than other phobias. Around 80% of those with blood phobia will pass out when exposed to stimulus.
- Those with blood phobia may have related health issues due to the avoidance of health care. Some studies show up to 15% will avoid dental treatment due to their fear.
- Applied Tension seems to be the most common treatment, with Applied Relaxation and Exposure also being common.
- In response to feared stimulus, people with blood phobia may breath irregularly which may lead to loss of consciousness.
From a lot of the above research it has been shown that individual elements need focus in hemophobia treatment (eg breathing), however there is also a need for treatment to look at the whole of person approach – breathing, fear, exposure, anxiety reduction – in order to ensure that patients get the best outcomes possible from their treatment.