Emetophobia treatment
Emetophobia treatment, and what actually works
Emetophobia is an overwhelming fear of being sick, or of other people being sick, that takes over a person’s daily life. Most sufferers feel stuck with it. They are not.
What emetophobia is
Emetophobia is an intense fear of vomiting, of seeing somebody else vomit, or both. It can be distressing and genuinely disabling — and it responds very well to the right kind of help.
A fear and a phobia are not the same thing
Both are horrible to live with. The difference is how much of your life the fear takes up.
People with a fear of being sick feel anxious at the thought of it and go out of their way to avoid it. They may restrict what they eat, sanitise everything and dread being pregnant.
For it to be a phobia, the fear has to have a significant impact on your life — preoccupying your thoughts, and shaping school, relationships, work, career choices or the decision to have children.
Most sufferers can think calmly about worst-case scenarios in every other area of their lives. Around sick, they cannot. They worry about the bug going round, about drinkers coming out of the pub, about hygiene, about whether tonight’s dinner will give them food poisoning. They picture being sick in public and how awful that would be, which reinforces the belief that they could not cope — so they avoid more, and the fear grows.
Why so few people have heard of it
Millions of people worldwide have this phobia, and almost nobody has heard of it. There is a reason for that.
Most people do not enjoy being sick, but they are not frightened of it, so sufferers learn to keep quiet rather than be told it is not a big deal. Many have been told exactly that.
Emetophobes also tend to have some social anxiety, however confident they look. They do not want to seem silly, so they hide it from friends and family. Behind the front is constant body-checking, scanning for threats, and worrying what people would think.
Some do not know the fear has a name at all. Others are treated for OCD or an eating disorder without anyone spotting that a fear of being sick is underneath it. It is called the secret phobia for good reason — but there is nothing embarrassing about having it.
And it is one of the hardest fears to carry. If you are frightened of flying, you can choose not to fly. The emetophobic mind believes there is always a chance of being sick: today went alright, but what about tonight, or tomorrow?
What causes it
Several things make it more likely: particular thinking styles, beliefs and behaviours, your gender, and how you were parented. Emetophobes tend towards perfectionism, all-or-nothing thinking, social anxiety, low self-esteem, some obsessive thinking, and a powerful desire for control.
That last one is the key. A fear of vomit sits on top of a deeper fear of being out of control. Most sufferers are driven people who put real effort into work, school, hobbies and how they look. They feel capable when they are in control and struggle badly when they are not — so they use avoidance and safety-seeking behaviours to stay there: restricting food, washing hands, googling symptoms, carrying anti-nausea tablets, asking for reassurance.
Why the safety behaviours keep it going
Every one of those behaviours brings relief for a few minutes, and keeps the phobia in place for years. If you always have to feel in control, you never get to find out that you can cope when you are not.
What effective treatment looks like
Treatment that works does not go after the sick. It builds up your coping skills, gently, until you no longer need the avoidance and the safety behaviours — at which point the fear of being out of control fades, and the phobia goes with it.
That is what the Emetophobia-Free programme does. It is built on more than thirty years of clinical work with thousands of emetophobes. It teaches you how your mind is producing this fear, then takes you step by step through changing it. There is no exposure therapy involved.
Bella Ramsey had this too.
And came out the other side.
“It’s not controlling my life anymore.”
The BAFTA-winning actor — The Worst Witch, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us — was housebound at one point as a teenager, and took travel sickness tablets and antacids to get through a working day on set. They had tried self-help books, CBT and hypnotherapy. None of it worked.
Bella went through this programme, and describes no longer thinking about sickness, no longer being frightened of it, and no longer letting it decide what they can and can’t do. They talk about all of it, openly, in their own words.
Listen to the episode →
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