BEAT EMETOPHOBIA: JENNI’S CURE YOUR EMETOPHOBIA & THRIVE EXPERIENCE

A big hello from Jenni Steele in Thailand who beat emetophobia using Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive with the help of one of The Thrive Programme's fully licensed Coaches via Skype, over the course of 6 weeks. Jenni is 25, working, and has struggled with emetophobia since she was a child. It stopped her socialising, travelling back to the UK to see family and friends and living a full life. Now Jenni is ready to do all these things and live her life without anxiety.

Jenni is big on social media and technology and documented her journey through Thrive week by week. She hopes by sharing her story that it will inspire others to give Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive a go and beat emetophobia whilst truly becoming happier, more confident and resilient. Her message is to go and get thriving, you won't look back.

Watch the videos below for Jenni's Emetophobia Experience

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 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 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.”