As seen on BBC News: Amazing young lady overcomes lifelong emetophobia!

We love this recovery story from Hannah Ellis - a student who suffered from lifelong emetophobia before beating the phobia following BBC News coverage of her condition. The video below shows what is possible in just a few short weeks!

After her emetophobia had become all-consuming and rendered Hannah in limbo, she expressed her frustrations by posting a detailed blog online. After gathering some interest, this blog attracted the attention of two BBC reporters who asked Hannah to explain her emetophobia and be part of a BBC interview. Gladly accepting, she detailed her symptoms and the lack of expert help out there in an honest interview.

Rob Kelly, author of the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Workbookand creator of The Thrive Programme, contacted Hannah and offered to guide her through the programme. Initially sceptical, Hannah struggled with the idea that a book could help her overcome her lifelong emetophobia but, with nothing to lose, she accepted.

Now, after completing the programme Hannah delights in telling us just how much more in control of her thoughts and emotions she is, and that her ‘moments’ of pro-emetophobic thoughts are diminishing daily.

Now able to re-heat food, eat food that is slightly out of date and even eat street food, Hannah’s amazing transformation is perfectly summed up by her calm and effective response to her friend vomiting in front of her during a night out ! Not only did Hannah manage herself and the incident extremely well, she also helped her friend during the sickness – something that she would never had dreamed of in the heights of her emetophobia.

Hannah also informs us that there are a host of situations and experiences that she would never have entered into only a few weeks ago, that she engages with 100% without any anxiety at all.

A tremendous journey, highlighted by these insightful video-blogs, and as she states in her final video ‘I’m a lot more confident, I feel a lot better in myself and I can cope in situations that I would never have even myself into before’

A fantastic journey, brilliantly told, well done Hannah!

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 emetophobiahas 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 vomiting…) 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. Lifelong emetophobia is common - it often starts in childhood and continues into adulthood as sufferers aren't aware of what is wrong and how to treat it. 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.”