# Can Hypnosis Really Get Rid of Phobias

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-hypnosis-really-get-rid-of-phobias/502881>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 13, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-hypnosis-really-get-rid-of-phobias/502881 "2009-07-13T18:25:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![arachnologus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@arachnologus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arachnologus)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-hypnosis-really-get-rid-of-phobias/502881/21 "2009-07-22T01:21:17Z")

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Maybe we’re talking about the same thing here (I admit I don’t know the psyciatric definition of CBT) but I have assisted psychiatrists who were treating arachnophobes with exposure therapy. These days my help is not needed because they do it all with virtual reality. But back in the day, it was always possible to find a spider **so very small** that it wouldn’t trigger anyone’s fears. Then, once they were used to that one, we could move to one a little bigger, and so forth.

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**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-hypnosis-really-get-rid-of-phobias/502881/24 "2016-04-07T12:43:16Z")

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reported

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