Cynophobia is the extreme fear of dogs that affects both children and adults. The name of the phobia comes from the Greek word ‘cyno’, which means dog.
The disorder, categorised by people who go out of their way to avoid dogs, is thought to affect one in every 20 people.
I am one of those people. My fear of dogs has been with me for as long as I can remember.
Granted, I am no longer the panic stricken mess of a man I used to be when I would encounter a dog, but the anxiety and apprehension is still there and, if your dog is big and scary enough, I am most likely crossing the road.
I still don’t enter a friend's house if they have a dog. I won’t bend over to pat an excited pup when when it brushes itself against me at the park, and the longer a dog is in my presence the more nervous I become.
Also, culturally dogs were treated differently in the communities I am from. Back in Congo or South Africa, where I spent my formative years, not many friends or family had them as pets and when you did see them they were to be avoided for fear of disease as they were most likely strays.
The other time you would see dogs was when they sat menacingly with snarling teeth at the feet of an imposing soldier in army fatigues and an AK47 strapped to his back at the local market. A scary sight for any young child.
However, 2023 is a new year and, in the pursuit of self improvement I thought now is the right time to finally get over my fear for good. I enlisted the help of eight-month-puppy called Reggie and a Stockport based hypnotherapist and magician, Jonathan Royle.
Jonathan was there to hypnotise me and Reggie was there for us to see successful the session is. Before we began I faced Reggie while he sat at the feet of my trusted and revered colleague Neal Keeling, but even then I was adamant in keeping my distance and wanted no contact whatsoever with Reggie the pup.
Jonathan has thirty years of experience in the field, which began when he was just 14-years-old. Jonathan grew up in a circus family, and took to hypnotherapy as a teen, a therapy which he says he has used to help himself overcome addiction and mental health issues that he developed after being bullied throughout his childhood.
“People don’t need to live with these negative things in their lives," he said.
“I used to have addiction to alcohol, cannabis, cigarettes, cocaine in my mid to late teens. Before I was 19 I dealt with all these using purely psychological techniques.
“Some call it positive self affirmations, hypnotherapy, some call it neuro-linguistic programming.
“But I use various different techniques and I managed to get over these things, then I thought 'I need to help other people.'”
When booking the job, Jonathan asked if I was willing to be ‘hypnotised’ and made sure to remind me that the process works best on people who are open to taking part. I spent the days prior challenging my scepticism and any biases I had towards hypnotherapy and hypnotists.
The hypnotherapy session itself was actually quite pleasant. Jonathan described one of the methods he used as “positive self affirmation” and that is what it felt like. I was fully conscious of my surroundings and I was fully aware that some of the exercises made me look like a bit of fool on camera.
However, I was open and listening intently to his instructions, his explanations and reasoning for overcoming my fear and they made sense.
Before the 'eyes closed, relaxation' part of the session, Jordan put me through a series of exercises to relax and open my mind to the whole ordeal. With my eyes closed and mind free Jonathan asked me to imagine things like magnets forcing my index fingers together and balloons lifting one hand and weights lowering the other.
All these methods were physical ‘proof’ for my conscience to trust and believe in Jonathan’s words that would eventually help me rewire my thought process when it came to my fear.
“The reason we did various exercises is because I needed your imagination to turn the things that I verbalise to you into reality at the snap of a finger, practically instantly.” He explained.
The final act was the 'eyes closed, relaxation' process, which is the method commonly shown in mainstream media, where a hypnotist snaps his fingers and the subject slumps into a deep sleep.
I have to say, I wasn’t ‘put to sleep’ I wasn’t in some faraway realm, nor did I tap into some astral plane. I was fully aware of my surroundings, in fact I knew what was coming before it came, but at this point I had no reason to distrust Jonathan, thanks to the exercises we performed before.
While in the ‘deep sleep’, Jonathan asked me to imagine my fears projected on a magic television. He talked me through engaging with that fear, asking me to imagine myself demolishing the TV which I did by using an imaginary baseball bat.
After that he asked me to imagine myself looking into a magic mirror, but this time the reflection looking back at me was a different me, a more confident, glowing Rami staring back. Eventually I would walk through the magic mirror, a changed man.
My mind was genuinely empty and the little voice in my head turned into Jonathan’s. A pessimist by nature, my mind was more than happy to welcome thoughts of positivity, security and confidence. Even if they were from someone else.
“The eyes closed was when we got to the point that I knew we could go to your computer bank control room and cement changes," he said.
“We basically occupy your conscious mind and also slightly overload your analytical area of your brain to talk to your imagination and dial down that intensity and put in some good feelings and security. Things that you knew consciously, but your unconscious was stepping in to protect you.”
Is my fear cured?
The short answer is no. But considering I was comfortable enough to pet and sit very close to Reggie by the end, my apprehension and anxiety has lessened around dogs.
However, I still feel a pang in my heart when dogs come too close, and I am definitely in no hurry to adopt a rescue.
There were a lot of mitigating factors that we can’t ignore also. The session was carried out in a controlled environment, and I was surrounded by people who I am familiar with and trust.
Reggie, himself was also obviously not bothered about my presence at all, so keeping a healthy distance between us was relatively easy. I am yet to see how I would respond to a much bigger, excitable dog vying for my attention.
However, like Jonathan said, it is a process that will take time and the hypnotherapy was a good start.
You can follow some of Jonathan’s work via his website and YouTube channel.
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