Emetophobia Therapy Woodland Hills

Does Your Fear Of Vomiting Keep You Feeling Stuck?

Do you commonly avoid certain foods, alcohol, or restaurants because you associate them with throwing up? Does hearing or seeing anything associated with vomit make you leave the room? Are you embarrassed to admit how nervous, panicked, or overwhelmed your fear of vomiting makes you?

Perhaps your fear of throwing up has become a constant worry that you can’t put down or overcome. Maybe you actively avoid any activity you worry could make you nauseous or dizzy, such as physical exercise, amusement parks, car trips, or planes. To ensure you never vomit, you might take drastic measures to stay away from potentially ill people. As an added precaution, you might wash your hands and clean surfaces excessively, overcook foods like meat or eggs, throw foods away before the expiration date has passed, or stick to a restrictive diet that eliminates foods that may trigger the gag reflex.

You May Feel Misunderstood

Although you live with an acute fear that shapes your thoughts and behaviors, it may be hard to talk about. Getting loved ones to understand how this fear affects you may be difficult to explain or make you self-conscious. Although some family members may accommodate your behavior by cooking you specially prepared foods, others may get frustrated by your avoidance-based behaviors, leading to misunderstanding and strained relationships.

Despite how exhausting it is trying to eliminate any risk of throwing up each day, you may not know how to quiet the fear at the root of your compulsive behavior. The good news is that emetophobia therapy can help you reduce the anxious thoughts and compulsions related to your fear of throwing up. Drawing from evidence-based treatments, your fear of throwing up can be managed so that it stops controlling your life.

Although Rare, Emetophobia Causes Intense Anxiety And Fear

Most everyone dislikes vomiting, considering it to be a gross bodily function we prefer to avoid whenever possible. However, for some, emetophobia, an excessive fear of vomiting, is a debilitating and pervasive phobia that affects every aspect of life. An estimated 0.1 percent of people around the world are affected by emetophobia but are often first diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or an eating disorder. [1] Additionally, people who have an intense fear of vomiting may sometimes suffer from malnutrition as a result of avoiding foods they associate with throwing up.

Emetophobia often presents in childhood but can develop and grow in severity as we get older. Although its origins remain unclear, it affects both men and women and can stem from a negative experience with vomiting in childhood or from family or cultural beliefs. However, in most instances, there is no correlation to where it comes from, making it a particularly vexing mental health condition.

Finding The Right Treatment For Emetophobia Can Be Challenging

Similar to overcoming any other sort of fear, emetophobia can be hard to overcome on your own. But rather than seek help, we become accustomed to using avoidance as our go-to coping skill. Unfortunately, the undesired consequence of circumventing our fear of throwing up often leads to missing out on what would otherwise be pleasurable activities, such as travel, dining out, exercising, and socializing.

When you suffer from emetophobia, the anxiety feels real to you. The discomfort and disgust you experience when exposed to the idea of vomit is so extreme that you may take great measures to avoid it. Only by confronting fears in therapy and building tolerance for discomfort can emetophobia be alleviated.

Therapy For Emetophobia Can Help You Break The Cycle Of Fear

When your life is ruled by fear, it can be exhausting and deprive you of the freedom to live without rules, restrictions, and avoidance. At Embracing You Therapy, our specialists are trained in treatment methods that address the unwanted cycle of trigger, anxiety, and reinforcement associated with a vomiting phobia.

Because emetophobia shares similar traits to OCD, we have found Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to be effective forms of treatment. Our goal in therapy will be to dispel your fear of vomiting so you can ultimately accept it as a necessary and fleeting bodily function you can live with. Learning how to make value-based—not fear-based—decisions allows you to shift your mindset to be aligned with your dreams and desires.

What To Expect In Sessions

Initially, we will assess you for emetophobia and, if applicable, provide you with a formal diagnosis. We will also focus on psychoeducation to ensure you have a thorough understanding of your phobia and what changes you can make to vanquish it once and for all.

Gaining the momentum needed to challenge your fears requires you to identify what emetophobia has taken away. Acknowledging that avoidance-based coping mechanisms have robbed you of your independence, flexibility, and peace of mind can be the impetus to make changes that will benefit your long-term well-being.

The Modalities We Use For Emetophobia Therapy

CBT, ERP, ACT, and mindfulness are effective treatments for emetophobia. We use cognitive reframing to help identify the negative and distorted self-talk that perpetuates emetophobia, such as, “Throwing up is horrible” or “I can’t handle being around vomit.” Once you challenge these entrenched thoughts, you will realize that you actually can handle your discomfort.

With ACT, we focus on what changes you can make to restore the things you may have let go of due to your phobia, such as a job, relationship, hobby, or social activity. Determining what you value most will help motivate you to make whatever behavior modifications are needed to ensure you live with purpose.

Exposure therapy can address your fear of vomiting by identifying the compulsive behaviors associated with your phobia and systematically eliminating them. Through exposure, you can build up your tolerance for discomfort and embrace the uncertainty of whether or not you may vomit. The goal of ERP is to gradually face your fears so you can surf moments of discomfort without resorting to avoidance or compulsive behavior. With mindfulness techniques, you will learn how to observe how you react to experiences without attaching judgment.

You deserve a life that isn’t centered around irrational fear. Your emetophobia has been in the driver’s seat for way too long. It is time to take back the wheel and steer your life in the direction you want. When you work with a therapist who understands the nuances of emetophobia, you can regain your confidence, build resilience, and improve your overall outlook on life.

But You May Have More Questions About Emetophobia Therapy…

Does my fear of vomiting require treatment? Isn’t it just a matter of getting over it?

Treatment for any phobia, including vomiting, isn’t simply about “getting over it.” For example, if you have forced yourself to eat a food that you fear could make you sick, you may find that you can only do it once or twice before relapsing back into avoidance. Our goal in emetophobia therapy is to help you build a solid understanding of the entrenched cycle of anxiety and avoidance you are currently experiencing. From there, we will create a game plan to disrupt the emetophobia cycle that includes evidence-based modalities like ERP, CBT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness.

The last time I tried emetophobia therapy, it wasn’t working so I stopped going.

We understand that seeking treatment for your fear of throwing up can create a lot of anxiety. Confronting fear can be overwhelming, leading you to prematurely step away from emetophobia treatment before making breakthroughs. To ensure you stick with therapy long enough for it to be effective, your therapist will explain the treatment plan for emetophobia every step of the way. Because emetophobia is not triggered by trauma or any other core fear stemming from your childhood, process-oriented or talk therapy won’t be particularly effective. The specialists at Embracing You Therapy provide hands-on tools to help you neutralize emetophobia so your fear no longer controls you.

We Can Help You Overcome Emetophobia

You don’t have to suffer in silence anymore. To schedule an appointment to begin emetophobia therapy at our Woodland Hills therapy or online, please fill out the contact form to schedule a free phone consultation.