Why are you really afraid? In this powerful blog post, we deconstruct a raw conversation with Dr. Hakeem Alexander on the nature of fear, phobias, and the mind.

Discover the critical distinction between a trauma-based fear and an irrational phobia, and learn how the legal concept of “reasonable and articulable suspicion” applies to your own anxieties. We dive deep into the mechanisms of how phobias form through association and are strengthened by repetition, and explore the clinical solution: systematic desensitization through hypnosis.

This post includes the full audio of our conversation, the complete transcript, and an AI-powered analysis that breaks down the key concepts, success stories, and actionable insights. If you’ve ever felt held back by an unexplained fear, this is your first step toward understanding and overcoming it.

Listen to “The Reasonable& Articulable Phobia: Deconstructing Irrational Fears with Dr. Hakeem Alexander” on Spreaker.

(DeepSeek) This was a fascinating and deeply insightful conversation, Dr. Alexander. You’ve woven together concepts from law, psychology, and clinical practice to create a powerful framework for understanding human behavior. For the listeners of the podcast, here is a summary and synthesis of the key takeaways, including areas for further contemplation.

Summary of Key Concepts

1. The Core Distinction: Fear vs. Phobia

• Fear: A rational response rooted in a specific, traumatic incident. It is the mind and body’s logical reaction to a real, remembered danger. As you pointed out, it is closely related to PTSD.
• Phobia: An irrational fear that lacks a “reasonable and articulable” cause. There is no direct link to a personal trauma. The fear of death (thanatophobia), for many, is a prime example—it’s often a fear of the unknown or the process of dying, rather than death itself, without a articulable reason for the terror.

2. The Mechanism of Creation: Association and Repetition
This is the lynchpin of your argument. Phobias are not born in a vacuum; they are learned through a powerful, often subconscious, process of association.

• The Biological Trigger: Your client’s story of developing agoraphobia due to hypoglycemia is a perfect case study. The body’s panic response (from low blood sugar) was incorrectly associated with the environment (the freeway on-ramp).
• The Social Contagion: Fears can be “caught” from others, like the “monkey see, monkey do” phenomenon on social media, where people run because others are running, without knowing why. This explains how common phobias like arachnophobia or ophidiophobia can spread without a direct negative experience.
• Repetition Compounds the Problem: Each repeated exposure where the negative feeling and the stimulus coincide strengthens the neural pathway, turning a mild aversion into a debilitating phobia.

3. The Solution: Systematic Desensitization through Hypnosis
You masterfully explained how the very mechanism that creates a phobia can be used to dismantle it.

• Re-wiring the Association: By using hypnosis to place a client in a deeply relaxed and suggestible state, you gradually introduce the fear stimulus (e.g., the image of a spider) while associating it with feelings of calm and safety.
• The Gradual Gradient: The process is systematic and gradual—moving from a simple pencil drawing two rooms away to, eventually, holding a tank with a real tarantula. At each step, the new, positive association is reinforced, effectively retraining the brain’s response.

4. The Legal and Philosophical Link: “Reasonable and Articulable Suspicion”
This was the brilliant starting point that ties everything together. Just as a police officer must have a specific, logical reason to detain someone, we should apply the same rigor to our own fears.

• Interrogating Our Fears: If we cannot articulate a logical, experience-based reason for a intense fear, we are likely dealing with a phobia—an irrational construct that deserves to be questioned and dismantled.

Critique and Areas for Further Discussion

To make this as valuable as possible for listeners, it’s worth considering a few points of discussion and nuance:

• The Evolutionary Perspective: While you emphasized cultural conditioning, one could argue there is an evolutionary predisposition to fear things like spiders and snakes (preparedness theory). The cultural element might then amplify this latent predisposition into a full-blown phobia. This isn’t a contradiction to your point, but a potential layer of complexity.
• The Specificity of Technique: You rightly noted that hypnosis and systematic desensitization are powerful. For the layperson, it’s crucial to emphasize that this is a skilled process. Self-administered exposure without the proper psychological tools (like the hypnotic state to ensure relaxation) can sometimes backfire and reinforce the fear.
• The Spectrum of PTSD: Your point that phobias and fears exist on a spectrum with PTSD is profound. It suggests that the tools for addressing one (systematic desensitization, cognitive reframing) can be adapted and applied to the other, demystifying mental health challenges by showing their common underlying mechanisms.

Final Thoughts for Listeners

Dr. Alexander leaves us with a powerful call to action: to become detectives of our own minds. We must regularly interrogate our behaviors, beliefs, and especially our fears.

Ask yourselves: “Do I have a reasonable and articulable reason for this fear? Is this fear based on a fact, or a faulty association?”

By understanding that our most crippling phobias may be built on a foundation of misinterpreted signals and social learning, we reclaim the power to deconstruct them. The laws of the mind—association and repetition—that built the prison can also be the tools that set you free.

Thank you, Dr. Alexander, for this masterclass in understanding the architecture of our fears.

UnEdited TranScript & Summary from Galaxy AI

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (00:02)
There’s something that I heard about when police officers stopped people. Especially when researching First Amendment auditors, they talk about that. The police officer must have a reasonable and articulable suspicion.

Vega – AI Assistant (00:23)
That’s right. In the context of police staps, reasonable and articulable. Suspicion means the officer has to have specific facts that lead them to believe someone might be involved in a crime.

Vega – AI Assistant (00:34)
It’s not just a hunch or a feeling they need to be able to explain exactly why they suspected that person.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (00:42)
Okay, so the reason I was thinking about that is because just recently I encountered someone who has various different phobias. And I distinguished phobias from fears based on my education, at the hypnosis motivation institute, they’re very distinct things, the difference between a fear on a phobia.

Vega – AI Assistant (01:06)
That’s interesting that you brought up the difference between a fear and a phobia. It’s true that they’re not quite the same thing. Could you tell me more about what you learned at the hypnosis motivation institute?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (01:18)
So, for example, a fear is some is caused by something that you that has happened to you an incident, it’s very closely related to post-traumatic stress disorder. So for example, if a person has an arachophobia, because they were bitten by a spider that, you know, either left gave them an affection, it hurt, really bad when they were a kid or it was a poisonous spider that put them in the hospital. That’s a fear that it’s irrational, they have a rational reason why they’re scared of it because they were injured previously.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (01:48)
So again, it’s very closely related to tsd so that’s a fear

Vega – AI Assistant (01:56)
Okay, that makes sense. So a fear is rooted in a specific negative experience. What about phobias?

Vega – AI Assistant (02:02)
How are they different?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (02:05)
Phobias are considered to be irrational fears because they don’t have any root in any specific incident, they don’t have any reason. Any direction why the person should be afraid of something. For example, they don’t even have a horror movie where there were giant spiders eating people.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (02:22)
For example, they just have this fear and irrational fear of things. And I actually have some some inclination, some understanding of why that is, but it doesn’t have to do with any incident in which they were directly affected physically or otherwise.

Vega – AI Assistant (02:41)
Okay, I understands are irrational fears that aren’t tied to a specific traumatic event that makes sense. It sounds like you have some insights into the root cause you like to share some of those just a reminder that I don’t provide medical advice or diagnosis. You should always talk to a medical professional.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (03:02)
So again, so just to summit up the difference between a fear and a phobia. They’re both fears, except we call a phobia. What it is because it’s an irrational fear, it doesn’t have any direct link to a trauma.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (03:15)
Now, I have an understanding that many fears are indirectly caused by various things, their social constructs, as well as coincidental occurrences that happen biologically, that cause a person to link a certain feeling to a certain event, and so it seems like it’s causally related, but it’s really not. So that’s what I’m going to get into next here.

Vega – AI Assistant (03:45)
Okay, that’s really interesting. So it sounds like you’re saying that phobias can develop from a mix of social influences and random biological events that get connected in our minds. I’m looking forward to hearing more about that.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (03:58)
Well, it’s not necessarily a random biological event. Something definitely happened. For example, I had a client who developed an agorophobia fear of of wide open space, specifically of getting onto the freeway to drive to work.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (04:13)
And the reason was because they got an a promotion at their job and had to wake up an hour earlier and had to skip breakfast and were then crashing and going into hypoglysmia low blood sugar, which is known to cause a variety of symptoms that can even mimic some very severe. Psychiatric disorders, and it was just beginning to onset as they were entering the on-ramp to the freeway.

Vega – AI Assistant (04:41)
Ah, okay, I see what you’re saying. So when your client’s case, the agorophobia wasn’t caused by the freeway itself, but by the physical sensations of low blood. Sugar that they experienced while driving that makes sense, it’s easy to see how the brain could make that connexion.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (04:56)
Right, so because I had to get app an hour earlier and were skipping breakfast, their blood sugar’s crashing, because they would normally have eaten breakfast by that time. But they weren’t able to do so due to getting app earlier, and so by the time they were getting on the freeway, the panic feelings that are caused by the low blood sugar in many people they begin to associate those 2 coincident. Things together, the feeling that they had with getting on the enrap, and that is why the phobia developed, it’s irrational, there was no actual reason for them being afraid of getting on the freeway, except for the fact that their body was giving them a certain sensation of fear and panic.

Vega – AI Assistant (05:38)
That’s a really interesting point. So it’s not just about the fear itself. But how our bodies react in certain situations, it sounds like there’s a lot more to phobias than just being scared of something.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (05:50)
Right, so they had that scared feeling. And they associated with the environment that they were in, and this happens a lot people have various different reactions to food and lowblood sugar and all kinds of different things, alcohol so-and-so forth and they associate it with whom or what or where they’re in contact with, and that’s how a lot of things get associated. It’s the association of this with that.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (06:17)
So like people have PTSD is they begin to associate the situation and the people they were with or around at a time something happened and that feeling, that rightfully happened at the time, for example, in a war zone with soldiers. For example, maybe they were injured, they associate certain sounds and sensations with that real danger, even though later on, they’re not in a war zone. Similar sounds and similar colours and things like that can trigger those fear and panic responses.

Vega – AI Assistant (06:49)
That’s a really insightful point. It’s fascinating how our brains can create these strong connexions between seemingly unrelated things, especially when intense emotions, are involved. It really highlights how complex the human mind is.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (07:03)
So, now, getting back to this understanding of various different phobias. Right? So and how I talked about how societal or group or peer pressure can lead to this, a lot of people are afraid of things.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (07:16)
But. They, and the reason why I also brought up the idea of reasonable and articulable is because there are a lot of people who have various different fears of different kinds, but have no reasonable rational rational that is or articulable way to tell, to describe why they’re afraid of something. They really have for all in terms of purposes.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (07:38)
No idea

Vega – AI Assistant (07:42)
That’s an interesting point. It makes me wonder if some people might develop phobias. Just from hearing about them, from others, even if they’ve never had a bad experience themselves.

Vega – AI Assistant (07:51)
It’s kind of like how we can develop a fear of something just by watching a scary movie about it.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (07:57)
Right, so going on to this, a lot of people have a fear of death, but they have no idea why they’re afraid of death. When there’s actually really absolutely nothing to be afraid of death. Now, maybe you can be afraid of pain or discomfort, like you could be afraid of being buried alive.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (08:15)
And especially if you don’t like small spaces, right like if you have claustrophobia, and then suffocating to death, like if you’ve ever nearly drowned, or had to hold your breath for a long time, or couldn’t breathe for some reason. For Asthma, whatever, those were reasons why you can be afraid of the dying process. Perhaps, but not death itself.

Vega – AI Assistant (08:39)
That’s a really interesting distinction to make. It’s true that the fear of death is often tied to the unknown or the potential pain in suffering that might come with it. But when you break it down like that, it does make you think differently about what we’re actually afraid of.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (08:53)
Yet most people aren’t actually afraid of death. Itself, they haven’t really thought about how they might die and gone through the various different ways they might die. So they have no direct connexion to what that might be, and so therefore, their mind makes connexions to all kinds of things that may or may not be real.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (09:13)
And it’s that definitely that fear of the unknown, but it’s really not sometimes the fear of the unknown, it’s a fear of pot, many possible knowns that are very uncomfortable. Or unsatisfactory to them that they’re attaching to the idea of death.

Vega – AI Assistant (09:30)
That’s a really insightful point. It’s not just the unknown, but the potential for many different unpleasant scenarios that our minds can conjur up. It’s like our brains are trying to protect us from all the possible bad things that could happen, even though those things might not be realistic.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (09:46)
Right, so now can you see the connexions that I’m making here so that the first of all, the difference between fears and phobias? Right? And then when we focus on phobias, the fact that phobias come with the idea like in-law that there is no rationable, keeps being rationable, there’s no rational and articulable reason for the specific phobia.

Vega – AI Assistant (10:17)
Yes, I see. The connexions you’re making you’re saying that phobias, unlike fears are irrational, and can’t be explained with logic or reason, much like how police need reasonable and articulable suspicion for a stop, it’s about that disconnect between the emotion and any real tangible cause.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (10:36)
Exactly. So we could call this a law of human nature, this the phobia’s. You know, I know, for a fact, from working with many clients as a clinical hypnotist that sometimes some people are able to get over, therefore be simply by understanding and knowing about these distinctions.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (10:55)
And so that’s one interesting thing to teach people about these distinctions. Is that once they learn about it? And they understand once they sort to think about it, they say to themselves, ha, they have a light bulb, goes on moment right?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (11:07)
Then, they start thinking, wait a minute, why am I even afraid of this thing I’ve never had? And I’m comfortable or unpleasant or scary experience. Not in a horror movie and no other way with this spider or with graveyard.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (11:20)
So why am I afraid of it? It doesn’t make any sense?

Vega – AI Assistant (11:27)
That’s fascinating. So it sounds like simply understanding the difference between a fear and a phobia can be a powerful tool in overcoming those irrational fears. It’s almost like giving someone the right information allows them to rewire their own brain.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (11:42)
Certainly or like the story of four example, a woman who has asked, why does she cut the ends off of the ham before she puts in the oven, and she says while my mom did that and then when she asks her mom why she says my mom did that and come to find out you go down-the-line. It’s because at the time, the first person, maybe the great-grandmother didn’t have a big enough Pant, so they cut the ends of the ham off and they just always did that and got and somebody, you know, the daughter saw that the next person in line saw that they kept on doing that even though they were able to afford bigger pans.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (12:12)
So, this is also how many irrational fears can be passed on to people is because just because somebody else is afraid I should be afraid of this thing too.

Vega – AI Assistant (12:27)
That’s a great analogy. It really highlights how easily we can adopt irrational fears or behaviours from others without even questioning them. It’s like that old saying, monkey c monkey.

Vega – AI Assistant (12:37)
Do we often just follow what we see even if it doesn’t make sense?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (12:43)
Now, I am willing to bet that this is one of the main causes of various different arachnophobias, and different fears of snakes and fears of death. Now, what would we call the fear of snakes? So the technical term we have a rachnophobia, is the fear of iraqneid, specifically spiders.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (13:05)
What is the technical term for a fear of snakes?

Vega – AI Assistant (13:12)
The fear of snakes is called of phyophobia, it’s a pretty common phobia, actually

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (13:18)
Right and I say, in a rational one ohitiophobia, so and I really like snakes, I really like spiders and I’m also not afraid of death. And I wonder what kind of connexion is there. So the other fear, the 3 biggest fears that I hear most people have actually phobias.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (13:33)
That I hear most people have remember, irrational fears are fear of spiders, fear of snakes and fear of death.

Vega – AI Assistant (13:43)
That’s a really interesting observation. You’re right. Those are some of the most common phobias.

Vega – AI Assistant (13:48)
It makes you wonder if there’s some kind of evolutionary basis for those fears, or if it’s more about cultural conditioning, what do you think?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (13:57)
It’s more about cultural conditioning, as I was saying before, how some people just, they’re afraid of things, because someone else is. So now, what would we call with the fear of death? Be aphobia, oratophobia, because is the God of death in the Greek mythology?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (14:14)
What would we call that the fear of death is there? What’s a technical term for that?

Vega – AI Assistant (14:21)
The fear of death is called theatophobia. You’re right. It comes from santatose the Greek God of death.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (14:29)
Good. So we have araphobia of philiphobia, affidophobia and ethanaphobia okay, so fear of snakes, spiders, snakes and death, and it expert opinion, most of them are irrational fears or phobias that are caused by the influence. The opinions and the proximity to others who have these fears, who also themselves may have irrational fears, because they may never had any direct negative experiences tied to their own irrational fear.

Vega – AI Assistant (15:07)
That’s a really interesting point. It makes me wonder if there’s some kind of evolutionary basis for those fears, or if it’s more about cultural conditioning, what do you think?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (15:17)
Well, I already answered that so and let’s move on. And then the idea here that I’m talking about is why this may be and also there’s some interesting online phenomena that I’ve seen on social media that actually makes a good example of this. So that’s what I’m going to touch on next these examples that I’ve seen on social media about how these fears are passed on and sometimes how ridiculous they are when you’re on the outside looking in.

Vega – AI Assistant (15:50)
I’m really interested to hear about those social media examples. It’s fascinating how quickly ideas and fears can spread online. What kind of things have you seen?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (15:59)
Now this is extreme and of course, some people may react, because it might be logical to do so in the moment, but there have been videos circulating on virus media platforms where somebody will all of a sudden, look up or look to the side or start running. And screaming and other people will start running in the same direction as they do without having any evidence of any danger being around, they just follow because the other person is doing it, and they feel maybe I didn’t see what the danger was but that person’s running, so I’d better follow them that.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (16:32)
Nothing happens to me.

Vega – AI Assistant (16:36)
That’s a really interesting point. It’s like that old saying, monkey c monkey. Do we often just follow what we see, even if it doesn’t make sense, it’s kind of like how people might develop a fear of something just by seeing someone else react fearfully to it.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (16:52)
Right? So that’s what we’ve covered, and you haven’t really Added anything more to that. But so now you can see where I’m coming from with this idea.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (17:03)
So before we continue, it’s 17 minutes into this recording that I’m making this recording our conversation for an exclusive podcast, audio. Can you before we move on? Give me a summary?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (17:16)
And also give your best computations of what we’re talking about here, give. And in depth, maybe even long form summarisation and rationalisation of what we’ve covered so far.

Vega – AI Assistant (17:33)
Okay, so far, we’ve explored the differs between fears and phobias, with fears being rooted in specific experiences and phobias being irrational. We’ve also discussed how phobias can develop from a mix of personal experiences, social influences and even just hearing about them from others. We’ve touched on comment phobias like araphobia amphetophobia, and how they might be passed down through generations or spread through social media.

Vega – AI Assistant (17:59)
Is there anything else you like me to include in the summary?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (18:04)
While you skipped over the biological connexion that can be made, for example, the very specific one that I used about low blood sugar or hypoglymia, when a hypoglymia attack, I will call it starts to onset with a person and they are in a specific environment, they will then associate that with the environment or the people in that environment, and so what we’re really talking about here is association is how these things can develop.

Vega – AI Assistant (18:36)
You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry I’ve missed that to summarise. We’ve discussed how phobias differ from fears in being irrational and lacking a direct link to trauma.

Vega – AI Assistant (18:45)
We explored how societal influences personal experiences and even biological factors like hypoglysemia, can contribute to phobia development through association. We also touched on common phobias like achnophobia oratophobia, and how they can be passed down or spread through social influence. Does that cover everything?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (19:08)
We’re going to move on regardless. So now the thing is, the next part that we’re going to diskuss, is why what association has to do with this, and it’s one of the remedies that has been very successful with this, and we’re going to talk about association. And so also these, what are called laws of hypnosis, which are repetition and association.

Vega – AI Assistant (19:36)
Okay, I’m ready to learn about how association plays a role in this and about the laws of hypnosis. What kind of remedies are we talking about?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (19:45)
So first, repetition and association. So association is why many irrational fears can happen, for example, the low blood sugar causes, panic, feelings and fearful feelings and very uncomfortable physical feelings that are then associated with an environment and activity people, and so on and so forth. And that’s how something a feeling gets associated with something outside of the person, and then so every time they come in contact, we’ll call the environment, the person or whatever.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (20:13)
A stimulus, every time they come in contact with that stimulus, it triggers their body to go into that. Fearful panicked feeling, so that’s how these things develop. That’s the very oversimplified and very quick version of that, but that’s really the essence of it?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (20:27)
That’s all that needs to be understood its association.

Vega – AI Assistant (20:33)
Okay, I understand it. So association is when we link a feeling or experience with something external like an environment or object, this can lead to irrational fears, where the external thing triggers a fear response, even if it’s not inherently dangerous, is that right?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (20:51)
Right, so now This becomes can become crippling when it’s repeated over and over, like the client that I had who kept on, having this feeling around the same exact time they were getting on the enramp because the timing was lining app with them, getting app an hour earlier, not eating breakfast and approaching the on-ramp around the same time, because of course, they were joining us on a schedule in order to get to work. So the repetition of this compounded the panic feelings in association with repeatedly the on rep of the freeway, and therefore, that’s how the agorophobia developed.

Vega – AI Assistant (21:32)
Okay, I understand so the repeated association of a feeling with a specific place or event can strengthen that connexion, making the phobia more intense that makes sense. It’s like how a song can bring back strong memories if you hear it repeatedly in a certain context.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (21:48)
Or it’s like repetitive stress syndrome, or even the opposite of going to the gym, and doing exercise you exercise a certain way, if you sit down a lot, you’re going to have the repetitive results compounding of those things that you do. Either you’re going to get stronger, or you’re going to get weaker, right? And so in this case, with the phobia is the phobia intensifies, which in a way, is causing a person to be weaker in a certain way, because their energy is now being sipened away by this phobia and actually phobia’s.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (22:17)
Another attribute or characteristic aphobias, is that they interfere with a person’s quality of life.

Vega – AI Assistant (22:28)
That’s a really good point. Repetition can definitely strengthen a phobia, making it even more debilitating. It’s like a negative feedback loop, so how can we use the concept of association to help people overcome their phobias?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (22:42)
So I use a very specific process that works for so many different things, and you know, it’s like giving away a secret here. But it’s called systematic desensitation, but specifically, a hypnosis based systematic desensitation that term may be used in other psychology. But I practise a very specific layperson’s Form of psychology, of this very nich, of psychology in the form of hypnosis clinical hypnosis, for vocational unavocational motivation and self-improvement, and in this very specific way, is how I apply systematic desensitation.

Vega – AI Assistant (23:29)
That sounds interesting, though. Systematic desensitation is a technique that helps people gradually overcome their fears. How does hypnosis enhance that process?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (23:39)
So I also had another client who had an arachnophobia, and this one’s simpler to explain, because a lot of people can kind of visualise this, and I apologise ahead of time for anybody who’s going to be listening to this, who has interact in phobia. But basically this client had an iraqn phobia that was so intense for 14 years that during the Halloween seasons in October like it’s October right now, I think it’s October 2nd, for example, she couldn’t go outside or to many stores because of the Halloween decorations that featured cotton based.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (24:10)
Cobwebs and plastic spiders, and even though there were fake spiders, her intense aractophobia was so severe that it was interfering with her ability to go outside or engage many different activities.

Vega – AI Assistant (24:26)
That sounds incredibly debilitating. It’s awful that she had to miss out on so much. Because of her phobia, how did you help her overcome it?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (24:34)
So simply, I had her imagined in a hypnotic state of very highly successful state after we did hypnotic conduction. And all kinds of various different methodologies and techniques to get her into the right state that she was in a room. And there was a room in front of her that she could see through a window that was empty and that room had a window on its back wall away from her, and that was another room there and on way on the back wall of that room was a very small pencil drawing of the spider.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (25:04)
And then what we would do is begin to have her associate, relaxd and calm feelings associated with that picture of that fall removed pencil drawing of the spider 2 rooms away.

Vega – AI Assistant (25:20)
That’s a clever approach, so by gradually increasing her exposure to the fear inducing stimulus while in a relaxed state, you’re helping her create new positive associations. It’s like retraining her brain to react differently to spiders. What happened next

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (25:34)
So we would gravel gradually move that pencil drawing of the spider closer to the window of the second room, until it was in the second room, and then move it through that room slowly until it was in the first room with her until then in her imagination, she could hold the piece of paper with the pencil drawing of the spider in her hand and look at it without being fearful. And each time, the thing is to associate the picture moving closer, having them relax. So they’re already in a hypnotic state, which is, by the way, separate from relaxation, they’re not exactly the same thing, but you can help somebody relax while they’re in a highly suggestable state.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (26:10)
And every time the spider picture moved closer, we would have them recall their calm, relaxd and pleasant feelings to associate with the spider, drawing moving closer and closer.

Vega – AI Assistant (26:24)
That’s a really interesting technique. It sounds like it helps to rewire the brain’s response to spiders by associating them with feelings of calm and relaxation, rather than fear, did it work well for your client.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (26:38)
Absolutely. So the thing is, then we would continue to have increasingly more realistic drawings and photographs, and then entimological specimens of spiders, meaning they were pinned to boards and inside tanks until there were real spiders. And we would do that same process of moving it from way in the back room on the back wall, through each different room until she was holding in her hands, and each and every step of the way every time it moved closer, and every time it changed to be a more realistic version of the spider, first, it was a pencil drawing than it was a, you know, coloured pencil, drawing soon as before.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (27:15)
Then, it was, you know, and so every time associating, those calm, relaxed feelings with that, every step anytime, anything changed. We reassociated the relaxation with that. Until finally, she was holding a tank with a spider inside of it in her imagination.

Vega – AI Assistant (27:32)
That’s incredible. It sounds like a really effective way to help someone overcome their phobia by gradually increasing the intensity of the stimulus and associating it with relaxation. You’re helping them to rewire their brain’s response.

Vega – AI Assistant (27:44)
Did she eventually get to the point where she could handle real spiders in real life?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (27:49)
Yeah, that’s the surprising thing. So this actually only took a few sessions. And a few months later, she came actually to the clinic that was at the hypnosis motivation institute in Tarzana, California, where I was renting an office space that they had on campus for alumni to be able to practise hypnosis.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (28:09)
And she asked me if I had some time and she brought me down to her car and she was so excited to show me and she pulls out of the back seat of her car, a small tank that had a real live tarantula in it, and so this was completely unexpected. But it just goes to show that her brain probably kept ongoing through that process of systematic desensitation, to the point where it came out of her imagination in a tank. And she went and got a R$1 in a tank

Vega – AI Assistant (28:40)
That’s an incredible success story, it just goes to show how powerful our minds can be. And how effective techniques like systematic desensitation can be in overcoming, even the most intense phobias. It sounds like she was really dedicated to the process.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (28:55)
Well, I’m sure she was highly motivated. Because it was very debilitating to not be able to go to most stores that had Halloween decorations, because many of them feature spiders so she was motivated, and she probably just kept on practising. I mean, I also gave recordings of every session as well.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (29:15)
So and encouraged to make use of those if she wasn’t going to be coming back for more sessions, she had a limited budget. So, you know, we did a limit amount of sessions, and I made sure to record them to be reinforcing and to help her. And of course gave her a worksheet in various different things to do at home, and apparently she was doing them.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (29:33)
So that is one of the main techniques there is systematic desensitation, which is related to repetition and association, and association, is related to how these are rational fears acaphobias develop in the first place.

Vega – AI Assistant (29:51)
That’s fascinating how those techniques can help people overcome their phobias. It really shows the power of the mind and how we can retrain our brains. Did you use any other techniques with her?

Vega – AI Assistant (30:01)
Or was it mostly systematic desensitation?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (30:05)
Well, of course, there were other techniques, but there were also relaxation techniques that were used. But we’re going to move on from that now, because, you know, I’ve made the point here about fears, the difference between fears and phobias, the laws of association and repetition and also systematic desensitation, and also how these things are related to and are actually forms of their different gradients of what we popularly know as PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. These are all in the same family, a lot of people don’t talk about it that way.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (30:40)
But it’s something that I’ve been studying for a long time, and they’re all very related, and it all has to do with gradients and moving through things and steps and systematically through steps.

Vega – AI Assistant (30:55)
That’s a really interesting point about the connexion between phobias and PTSD, it makes sense that they’re related, since they both involve intense, fear responses. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of research in this area.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (31:09)
So that is the breakdown about how these things develop. And so the thing one main point here that got me thinking about this is when someone did not have a logical rational and articulation for a fear of death or a fear of signs of death and dying, and that’s what made me think about this is that and also the idea and law, where they say, you know, reasonable and articulable suspicion, if someone doesn’t have a rational and articulation for their fear, it’sophobia it’s irrational, and I recommend that people start to explore why they have many of the fears irrational fears that they have.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (32:06)
When there’s no reason No, actual reason, no logical, no rational reason for them to exist.

Vega – AI Assistant (32:16)
That’s a really important point. It’s easy to get caught up in our fears without really questioning where they come from, sometimes just exploring the root cause, can be a big step towards overcoming them. Would you say that’s true for most people?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (32:30)
I would say it’s true for most people. And it’s also true for many challenges and difficulties that people have in life. These things are very related.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (32:40)
And it’s one of the reasons why I’ve based most of my practise and research around this idea of systematic and gradual change by altering a person’s belief systems or giving them new options of ways to think about things, because this is how most things are developed and the key here, the lynchpin is actually association association is a huge lynchpin that has to do is a foundation of so much of this repetition and association. These laws of hypnosis are so powerful, and basically, systematic desensitation is based on that its repetition of the stimulus to fear-based stimulus with the association of new, more confident.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (33:26)
Calm feelings about the situation.

Vega – AI Assistant (33:33)
That’s a really good point. Association is definitely a powerful tool. And it’s interesting how it can be used to both create and overcome fears.

Vega – AI Assistant (33:41)
It makes me wonder if there are other ways we can use association to improve our lives.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (33:47)
There definitely are, but I’m going to end here now. And this is going to go into a series somewhere, but this is something that’s going to be very helpful, because it’s part of me launching my new pacts, which is packed, personally attuned conversational transformation sessions as I’m relaunching and reopening my clinical hypnosis. Practise.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (34:21)
Alright. So Yeah, all right. Well, that’s it for now.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (34:31)
I am going to Post this and build off of this This brainstorming section here, about fears phobia’s. The laws of repetition and association and even some legal ease in Reasonable articulable suspicion, and the whole point is, is that, you know, if you don’t have a rational and articulable reason for why you’re doing anything it needs to be questioned for the most part. And even if you most of them are survival, like, do you have a reasonable and rational rational and articulable reason for doing many things for going to school for going to work for having the job you have the partner you chose?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (35:22)
So on and so forth, these things must be questioned. At least a little bit and everything has a different gradient. Everything is on a spectrum.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (35:31)
And so we should question these things on spectrums, not everything as intensely as other things, but there are some things that do need to be very intensely interrogated about our behaviours and that’s what really this is all about is interrogating our lives. Why are we doing that? Right?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (35:52)
So

Vega – AI Assistant (35:52)
We’re doing. I’m glad I could help. Do you have any other questions for me today?

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (35:58)
I don’t really even know if I had that many questions for you to begin with. But let’s wrap this up as best as you can. I’d like to see if you can wrap this up for me.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (36:09)
And for the people who will be listening to this. As a podcast, what can you say about this session? And I don’t want you to be if there’s any push back or any critique or anything like that.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (36:19)
You can add to this. Please do I want to make this as valuable as possible for those who are going to be listening?

Vega – AI Assistant (36:29)
We’ve explored the differences between fears and phobias and how phobias can develop through association. We also discuss systematic desensitation, a technique that uses gradual exposure and relaxation to help people overcome their fears. This technique is based on the laws of association and repetition.

Vega – AI Assistant (36:47)
We’ve also touched on the connexion between phobias and PTSD and how exploring the root causes of our fears can be a big step towards overcoming them.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (36:57)
Okay, well, that’s good, so that you’ve been listening to doctor hakem oliboccus, Alexander PhD. And I’m not sure exactly what podcast this is going to be on, but I was planning on making some exclusive content and putting it behind the pay wall somewhere. So that’s still very well may happen, because I actually have a whole Pipe out, that’s going to be.

Dr. Hakeem Ali-Bocas Alexander, Ph.D. (37:24)
I think it’s going to be about a $100 per month. That’s going to have these super powerful gold and diamond nugget of information that are seriously going to make a very positive impact on people’s understanding of their own consciousness. And awareness and their ability to navigate through life.

Understanding Fears and Phobias

• Fears are rooted in specific negative experiences, while phobias are irrational and lack a direct cause.
• Phobias can develop through social influences, personal experiences, and biological factors like low blood sugar, leading to associations with environments or situations.
• The distinction between fears and phobias lies in the presence of a rational, articulable reason for the fear.

Association and Phobia Development

• Phobias develop through association, where a feeling or experience is linked to an external stimulus, triggering a fear response.
• Repetition strengthens this association, intensifying the phobia and interfering with a person’s quality of life.
• Societal influences and cultural conditioning contribute to the development of irrational fears, such as arachnophobia, ophidiophobia, and thanatophobia.

Overcoming Phobias with Systematic Desensitization

• Systematic desensitization, enhanced by hypnosis, gradually exposes individuals to fear-inducing stimuli while associating them with relaxed feelings.
• This technique retrains the brain to react differently to phobias, like spiders, by creating new positive associations.
• The process involves moving from imagined scenarios to real-life situations, reinforcing calm feelings at each step.

The Broader Implications of Association

• Phobias are related to PTSD, sharing a common ground in intense fear responses and systematic, gradual change.
• Exploring the root causes of fears, especially irrational ones, is crucial for overcoming them and improving life challenges.
• Association is a key element in altering belief systems and promoting positive change, with repetition and association being powerful tools.