Twenty Years of Emetophobia - Over 2 decades of chronic emetophobia and panic attacks...but no more thanks to The Thrive Programme!

For over twenty years Louise had chronic emetophobia, which played a huge part in ruling the decisions she made in her life.

Creating huge amounts of anxiety around the thought of vomit, Louise had convinced herself that she had it all under control, but spending enormous amounts of time and energy over-controlling her life, berating herself for her errors and maintaining incredibly low self-esteem.

She kept her emetophobia hidden from friends and family - as she discusses in the video below, she would put on a ‘brave face’ and pretend that she was confident and at ease, when in actual fact she would be incredibly anxious beneath the surface. Her appearance of 'being in control' was a reflection of the strong desire for control which contributed to her chronic emetophobia. Years of this behaviour took its toll on Louise.

Incessant attempts to control the world around her so that she could avoid the threat of being sick included constantly scanning people that she came into contact with to assess whether they looked unwell, and therefore would be likely to pass a sickness onto her.

She would always worry about contamination from others: her safety-seeking behaviours included carrying hand sanitizers, never touching hand rails, going through doors backwards to avoid touching them, using her elbows or covering her hands with her sleeves and using her knuckles on PIN card machines in shops.

After one major panic attack, Louise decided to do something about her problem. Following a brief search online she found Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive and contacted her local Thrive Programme Coach to guide her through the programme.

‘It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made’

Learning how to identify, challenge and ultimately change her beliefs about herself and her world has helped Louise overcome her chronic emetophobia.

Now she has so much more confidence in herself and is seeing the positives in every day. She is putting herself into situations that she would have previously avoided, and is enjoying life!

She is feeling so much happier and is able to do things that she would never have thought she could have before. As she says in the video ‘I just get on with it’

You do not have to live with emetophobia, you can COMPLETELY overcome it like Louise did..

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 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 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.”