Phobia Considerations
The use of IEMT as a model is being applied by its various practitioners on different issues that clients present. The main thing to consider is that the model is a multi-faceted system, rather than a set of techniques to be used disparately. If it is thought of as a set of techniques, the model loses its flexibility and may result in not helping the client adapt their life to cope better with the problems that they might experience.
One category of problems comes under the label of "Phobia", but what does that really mean?
Upon a quick look on Google, the result comes as follows
A disagreement I have with the above is that the emotion of fear and the emotion of aversion, present themselves differently in client interactions, below I elaborate with a few cases.
Client A presented the problem of having a fear of snakes. When I asked them "why?" they said I can't stand to see them. There was no memory-based event that showed up, and it was for the category in general, not item-specific. I proceeded to do the phobia model without words (Check this video by Andrew Austin to have a fuller example of it: Phobia Model Explained). In less than 5 minutes, the reaction of the client changed to the same trigger that was shown directly before we did the process. This approach works if the person has an actual phobia, which is 1- notice trigger, and 2-have a fear response to it. What this process does is dissociate the client from their response to the trigger, rather than being ok with seeing the trigger, which sometimes could be an actual threat. I have done this with 5 different clients on different triggers with similar results. In case of having a specific memory-based event, the K-Pattern could prove useful in helping with dealing with the feeling.
On the other hand, Client B presented a reaction to dogs that a friend had labeled as a phobia, and had advised client B to contact me. As I had a short discussion with her, she mentioned that she is Ok being around dogs, and has been all her life, but when a dog licks her, jumps on her, or when she touches the skin beneath the fur, she has a very uncomfortable reaction. The reaction also happened if she saw the dog licking someone else in front of her. The first thought that came to mind is that is more towards the category of disgust, rather than fear or phobia. To test, I did the above approach and got a very minimal change, I repeated the process, no change at all. The trigger was to get a dog to lick someone else's hand, and record her reaction. What the process did though is associate her into the unwanted feelings, and since IEMT works best with the here and now, I followed the K-Pattern questions, and there was a memory-based event unrelated to dogs but triggers the same category and intensity of emotion. After 2 rounds of the K-Pattern, the emotion was reduced to 0. We tested the trigger, and she had a different response, and even got close to the dog who then licked her hand with no reaction from her side. There was also an issue to create boundaries, which is a training issue rather than a change work and therapy issue, that we proceeded to work on in a different session.
Understanding the different dynamics of emotions: time duration & direction, active or passive, intensity, and environment where emotions are triggered help a lot in identifying what to do, when, and how.
Sometimes in certain cultures, people displace emotions from one trigger to another, as one client who had intense hate for dogs told me as we were exploring "One of my family members used to spy on me as I showered, what a DOG!", which is considered an insult in the culture the client belongs to. In that case, working on the identity aspect made a big difference in what that client experienced to the point of now having 2 pet dogs.
Another useful video to watch regarding phobias: Phobia Chapter from the Rainbow Machine