Online groups just made Josefine's phobia worse

Emetophobia Facebook Groups were SO bad for Josefine's Fear of Being Sick...then she found this book !

Josefine has lived with emetophobia for as long as she can remember, surrounded by her mum, dad, sister and brother and even her grandmother, who she describes as all having the the limiting beliefs, thinking styles and behaviours similar to the phobia. She was also a member of emetophobia Facebook groups which only reinforced the phobia.

“They all have unhelpful thinking styles like obsessing, catastrophic, black and white and paranoid. They also have low self-esteem and perfectionism. I have been living with this my whole life. I also was in Emetophobia Facebook groups, which affected me badly, so I decided to stop being in them.”

Josefine had therapy from the age of 9 for her emetophobia, trying all kinds of approaches, which all told her she had to live with her phobia. Discovering The Thrive Programme, she learnt from the many emetophobia testimonial videos that it was possible to overcome emetophobia.

“My biggest limiting belief was that my phobia was caused in my childhood by a scary event at school when I started to feel sick and was too scared to tell the teacher.” With that unhelpful belief, reinforced 2-3 times every minute by herself and many hours of unhelpful therapy, it was not surprising she thought she could never overcome it herself.

She ordered the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Workbookand was amazed to find that, “this book was saying the opposite: that it is actually about me and my thinking styles, not a traumatic event. It doesn't matter what has happened to you in the past, you choose to brood or think unhelpfully about something.”

“Going through The Thrive Programme was the best choice I have ever made because it has taught me so much about myself and I now feel that I have the skills and knowledge to deal with my life. I have managed to do many things now without creating anxiety. I feel that I still have to work hard on keeping up this new attitude and life style but I am confident that it will feel natural in a few weeks and I feel more powerful to deal with things now.” She has, thankfully, now left the Emetophobia Facebook groups!

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 consultants. 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 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. 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 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.” Like Josefine, emetophobes are often members of online forums and Emetophobia Facebook groups, which is highly detrimental to the phobia - talking with other sufferers only reinforces the idea that being sick is the most frightening thing in the world!!