Hofstra’s high-tech phobia cure

Consecotaleophobia: Fear of chopsticks.

Porphyrophobia: Fear of the color purple.

Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

While such bizarre worries seem easily avoidable and should have little impact on day-to-day life, many people suffer from debilitating fears that prevent them from performing everyday activities such as riding elevators, crossing the street or traveling on airplanes. Phobias, defined as irrational and excessive fears of objects or situations, are the most common form of anxiety disorder in the United States.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that eight to 18 percent of Americans suffer from some sort of phobia. Dr. Mitchell Schare, director of the Ph. D. Program in Clinical and School Psychology and professor of Psychology at Hofstra University, hopes to lower those numbers at he founded at Hofstra University about four years ago.

The clinic offers help to patients whose fears inhibit their quality of life. The clinic, staffed by doctoral candidates, uses exposure therapy, where a patient is introduced to the object or situation they fear. By teaching a person to confront their fears in a safe environment, Dr. Schare explained, they can learn to overcome their fears.

“Our natural reaction is to want to avoid things that make us uncomfortable,” Dr. Schare said. “If someone was bitten by a dog as a child, it is natural that they will be fearful when they see a dog. But if they keep on avoiding dogs they will never overcome that fear.”

While therapists at The Phobia and Trauma Clinic use both mental imagery and real life confrontations to help people overcome their phobias, their use of virtual reality is particularly groundbreaking. Using sophisticated computer programs, patients are placed in a simulated environment, allowing them to face their fears in a controlled setting all while under the supervision of a therapist.

Virtual reality exposure is used most commonly at The Phobia and Trauma Clinic to treat people who suffer from aviophobia, fear of flying, and glossophobia, fear of public speaking. The programs are customized for each patient to target their particular fears and slowly guide them through their worst nightmare.

For someone with a fear of public speaking, the program can be tailored to include a varied audience, some of whom could be talking on cell phones, sleeping, walking out of the room or even throwing things at the speaker. With the aid of a therapist, the patient can work his way through the scenario and gain the confidence needed to comfortably face a live audience.

In the case of someone with a fear of flying, virtual reality and real life therapy go hand in hand. At the onset of treatment, the patient must purchase a ticket for a real-life flight, so that flying becomes a concrete goal instead of just a theoretical one. The Phobia and Trauma Center has security clearance at a local airport so that patients can be taken into an airport, through security and even onto a real airplane as part of their therapy. Virtual therapy at the clinic takes the patient into the sky as they are strapped into a real airline seat and taken on an imaginary flight, with simulated severe turbulence including flashing cabin lights, the sounds of whining engines, shaking seats and even the smells of re-circulated airplane air.

Do patients find the treatment really works?

“They come back smiling,” reported Dr. Schare. “The truth is people always make their fears and anxieties much worse than reality.”

The clinic treated about 50 patients last year, whose phobias included fear of public speaking, small animals, medical procedures and travel phobias, among others. Many phobias are cured in just eight 45-minute sessions. Patients range in age from children to the elderly.

“It is an amazing feeling for us that in such a short time we can help people with such a big issue,” said Woodmere resident Tamar Kairy, a doctoral student at Hofstra and a student therapist at The Phobia and Trauma Clinic. “With many types of therapy it can take months to see progress. With this particular type of work, we see large changes in a short period of time. People feel liberated. It changes their life.”