Awesome single mum beat anxiety and emetophobia with The Thrive Programme!

Liz beat anxiety, emetophobia, low self-esteem and depression with The Thrive Programme, after suffering for years, causing her many problems in relationships and life in general.

Her self-esteem was so low that she described it as ‘self-hatred’. As a result, life was extremely tough, with Liz having financial and relationship issues alongside a huge terror of being sick.

She struggled with life and nothing helped until she found the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Programme. After completing the short programme, Liz started to ‘live life like a normal person’, she was no longer filled with the self-hatred she’d always had.

Using the programme to beat anxiety around being sick has improved her life better than she’d ever imagined, with benefits extending to all areas.

Six months after finishing the programme, Liz has the highest self-esteem of her life; she is no longer afraid of being sick and she no longer suffers from the physical and emotional effects of anxiety.

The depression that Liz suffered is a thing of the past, and tools and self-awareness she learnt by completing the programme means that she is her own ‘best coach’ Liz says her new life is ‘just awesome’!

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.”