Brilliant mum defeats her 30-year fear of vomit - gains confidence & self-esteem!

Louise had been suffering from emetophobia - a fear of vomit or sick - for as long as she could remember, certainly since she was around eight years old following a bout of food poisoning.

For the next thirty years, Louise lived with her chronic fear of vomit, which caused her to avoid social situations and going out with her friends for fear of encountering vomit. She also found it challenging when a family member fell ill or had a bug - meaning she didn't want to go anywhere near them. Explaining this to her family was tough.

Things came to a head recently when her son became ill and she found it really hard to be with him when he was being sick, so Louise decided to seek help with her phobia.

After doing some research, Louise found The Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Programme, which was just what she was looking for to help her deal with the life challenges she faced.

"I think I was cured (of my phobia) by about week four or five" explained Louise. "But I really wanted to see it through to the end. The programme itself deals with lots of things such as social anxiety and self-esteem through to how much you like to be in control of situations. As well as 100% curing me of my emetophobia, it's also helped me with lots of other issues such as confidence, self-esteem and other things I was facing in my personal life."

"I feel stronger and have a confidence about me - my parents, family and friends have all recognised a change in me since doing this programme. I would recommend this to anybody!"

Watch the Brilliant Mum defeats Emetophobia video review...

What is emetophobia?

Emetophobia, the fear of vomiting, is widespread; it is one of the most common phobias for which people consult The Thrive Programme's licensed Coaches. Research into emetophobia has suggested that prevalence of a fear of being sick ranges from 0.1 to 8.8% percent of the population (Hout & Bouman, 2011).

These different figures probably depend upon whether the researchers assessed participants for any sort of ‘fear’ of vomiting or solely focused upon a severe ‘phobia’. These prevalence figures suggest that somewhere between around 63,000 and 5.5 million people in the UK suffer from emetophobia.

Emetophobia is known by many names (emetophobia, specific phobia of vomiting (SPOV), vomit phobia, sickness phobia, fear of vomit…) and is associated with other fears and disorders, such as phagophobia (a fear of gagging, swallowing or choking), a fear of pregnancy, social anxiety and obsessional disorders. People can fear vomiting themselves and/or others vomiting. Most individuals with emetophobia are female, with research studies revealing that 85-97% of their emetophobic participants are women (Hout & Bouman, 2011; Lipsitz et al., 2001; Veale & Lambrou, 2006).

Emetophobia tends to be a severe symptom and often significantly affects sufferers’ ability to lead normal lives. People with this fear often go to great lengths to avoid encountering anything that could lead to vomiting. They may, for example, be teetotal or heavily limit their alcohol consumption and avoid pubs or clubs where others may drink heavily and then vomit. They may worry a great deal about hygiene, and be fussy about making sure everywhere is clean. They may take excessive time off work or school because they worry about being exposed to germs that will cause them to be sick.

Many sufferers of severe emetophobia have unsuccessfully tried a range of treatments, such as CBT, exposure therapy, CRT. Veale and Lambrou (2006), for example, found that twenty-nine percent of their sample of vomit phobics had received some form of therapy for their fear, which overall they rated as largely ineffective. Veale and Lambrou (2006, p. 139) have stated that “clinicians generally regard it as challenging to treat because of high drop out or a poor response to treatment.”