Button phobia

Now and again I intend to publish some case studies of hypnotherapy treatments. All the clients have agreed for their cases to be used in order to further understanding of hypnotherapy, and for marketing purposes. All identifying details have obviously been removed.

As phobias are bread and butter work for hypnotherapist, I plan to cover a range of phobias over the coming months – this month the focus is on a young man, Andrew, who had experienced button phobia (koumpounophobia) for many years. He had not willingly worn buttons since the age of three, and had developed increasingly complex avoidance rituals. However, he was now in the job market for the first time, and felt that he was not projecting the image he wanted, as he was turning up for interviews in t-shirts and casual jackets, as he could not contemplate wearing a suit. His aim was to be able to choose and wear a shirt and suit comfortably, doing the buttons up himself, and feeling relaxed while wearing it.

Like all phobias, to the non-phobic, button phobia seems irrational, but it actually is a fairly common fear. Some people believe it might be caused by an unobserved choking incident as a baby or toddler, or by other people telling them that they might choke on a button. I have had success in the past with treating button phobia with regression techniques, and with the NLP phobia cure, but Andrew was very against this conceptually, so we agreed to use a hypno-desensitisation.

This involved Andrew producing a hierarchy of anxiety in relation to buttons, and sorting these into a logical order, from least to most frightening. This is called the SUDS (subjective unit of distress) scale.
Andrew’s scale looked like this:

1. Handling disc-like objects such as coins
2. Hearing the word “button” in conversation
3. Looking at pictures of buttons
4. Seeing other people wearing buttons.
5. Handling clothing that had buttons
6. Handling small buttons (like shirt buttons)
7. Handling larger buttons
8. Handling a blue button with four holes (many sufferers have variations in their anxiety around the size, colour of number of holes a button has)
9. Wearing jeans with a button (his mother was currently cutting them off and attaching Velcro)
10. Wearing a shirt with buttons (he currently only wore pull-on tops, and had done since the age of three)
11. Wearing a suit with large four-hole buttons.

Trance was induced using progressive relaxation, and IMRs established. I then worked through the scale, describing each event, and making suggestions for increased relaxation at each stage. Andrew experienced minimal anxiety a levels 1 and 2, but signalled anxiety at stage three, which was reduced to manageable levels with additional suggestions for relaxation. At level 4, however, the anxiety could not be managed with relaxation, so the session was ended, with general ego-strengthening suggestions.

At the second session, after inducing trance, we began with level three (the highest level at which he had been able to manage his anxiety), and within the next 45 minutes, he progressed to level 8 with minimal stress. And level 9 he become uncomfortable, and unable to manage his anxiety with relaxation, so the session was terminated with general ego-strengthening suggestions, and a post hypnotic suggestion that the next time we worked together, he would proceed quickly and easily towards achieving his goal. He also agreed to use the relaxation techniques to do up to at least level 6 in real life.

At his final session two days later, Andrew arrived holding a large blue button with four holes (level 8). He was immensely pleased, and said that he had suddenly felt a compulsion to prove he could do it, so had given himself lots of suggestions about feeling good while handling buttons, gone into a fabric store, and looked through  cards of buttons till he found this one. He had had to do some deep breathing before he could handle it, but had been able to take it to the till, purchase it, and carry it in his pocket to the session.

During this final session he moved rapidly to level 11 with minimal anxiety, and agreed as a task that he would leave the session and put on trousers and a shirt with buttons (levels 9- 10) and wear them for at least two hours.  I taught him the NLP technique of anchoring, so that if he experienced any stress whatsoever, he could immediately return himself to a state of relaxation and calmness. After he had achieved this in real life, he would then move onto wearing a suit jacket.

Two days later, Andrew sent me a photo of himself wearing his first ever suit, shirt and tie. The accompanying note said the buttons were dark blue, and had four holes.