Overcome Emetophobia - Desire for Control

Overcome Emetophobia - Desire for Control - overcome your fear of being sick/vomit

The video below is a support video for people going through The Thrive Programme to overcome vomit phobia (emetophobia), using the Emetophobia-free Manual (available from our shop - there is also a version for young people in English and Danish - Young Person’s Edition, Teenager's Danish Edition). All emetophobes have a high desire for control, and this video, from Thrive Programme creator Rob Kelly, describes what this is and how you can reduce it.

Desire for control

A personality trait reflecting the extent to which individuals are generally motivated to control the events in their lives. How much control you want or attempt to gain over situations.

Perceived control

How much control you think you have. How predictable you believe your experiences are. This is a combination of locus of control/SPACE and your send of competency.

Learned Helplessness

The maladaptive passivity shown by animals and humans following experiences with uncontrollable events. Little of no control over events of concern.

Learned helplessness is an unhelpful thinking style in which a person believes that they are helpless and behaves in a helpless manner, even when they have the power to alter their damaging situation. Learned helplessness theory is the idea that clinical depression and similar mental illness arise from the perception that you have no control over the outcome of a situation. Learned helplessness is something that can be applied to any area of a person's life. As you may already have noticed, one big problem with learned helplessness is that it is somewhat self-propagating. You believe that you are powerless to alter your situation, so you do nothing to try to change things. As you are doing nothing, your situation doesn't change, which then further backs up your belief that things are hopeless.

Reduce your desire for control, overcome your Emetophobia and thrive!

By recognising and then modifying any unhelpful thinking styles you have, you are helping to reduce stress and anxiety, build a more internal sense of power and control, create higher self-esteem and lower your social anxiety.

For further help, view our other emetophobia support videos.