What I Treat
Phobia Treatment for Adults
One narrow fear, and a life quietly arranged around it. This is work I particularly want to be known for, because the target is so clear.
The Fear Is Narrow. The Cost Is Not.
Flights you did not take, so you drove eleven hours instead. The stairs, every time, because the elevator is out of the question and the office is on the sixth floor. A route through the neighborhood that adds four blocks because of one dog behind one fence.
- Flying, heights, bridges, tunnels, elevators, enclosed spaces
- Dogs, insects, spiders, snakes
- Vomiting, choking, swallowing
- Storms, deep water, crossing water
The part people rarely say out loud is the embarrassment. You are a competent adult who can run a department, and you cannot get in a small metal box that moves. You already know the fear is out of proportion. Knowing it has never once helped, and being told it again by someone else is worse than useless.
Why a Phobia Is a Good Match for ART
A phobia almost always has a picture attached, and it is usually the same picture every time. Sometimes it is a real memory: a turbulent descent, a bite, a childhood stomach bug. Often it is imagined, a worst moment your mind has rehearsed in high detail for years. Either way, the picture is what fires the surge, and the picture is what ART works with.
Because the fear is specific, the target is specific. We are not reorganizing your personality. We are working with one image and the physical response bolted to it, so that deciding whether to fly, or ride, or walk past the fence becomes an ordinary decision rather than a negotiation with your own body.
What a Session on a Phobia Involves
We start with the exact moment you dread rather than the topic. Not "flying" but the cabin door closing. Not "dogs" but the sound of nails on a driveway coming toward you.
You hold that moment in mind while I guide the eye movements, and we track the sensation as it moves. Afterward we test it: I ask you to bring the scene back deliberately and tell me what is there now. Then we rehearse the situation you are actually facing, the wedding you want to fly to or the appointment on the ninth floor.
Sessions are 60 minutes by secure video. No live exposure is arranged and I will never ask you to face the feared thing in person as part of the session.
What This Is Not, and When It Is Not the Fit
- Not in-person exposure work, and not a flying course or a program with a fixed length.
- Not a claim that a fear is removed permanently, and never a promised number of sessions.
- Not medication management for situational anxiety. That stays with your prescriber.
- Not a substitute for medical advice when the fear is attached to a physical condition.
- Adults only, by secure video in Kentucky and Ohio.
This is not a crisis service.
If you are in crisis, please call or text 988, call 911, or go to your nearest emergency room. ART is not appropriate during active psychosis or acute crisis. Individual outcomes vary.
Phobia Therapy by City
Sessions are by secure video anywhere in Kentucky and Ohio, with no office visit. These pages cover the areas people ask about most often.
Name the fear in a free fifteen-minute consultation.
Fifteen minutes, video or phone. Tell me what you avoid and what you would like to be able to do. I will tell you plainly how I would target it and what the work would look like. Nobody is going to ask you to look at a spider.