From Rita Allen
Helen Thomson reports on reconditioning methods that manipulate the brain to remove fear responses (11 December 2010, p 12). This is something I have been doing for around 20 years.
One day I challenged my fear of dogs and discovered the source was a childhood memory. Once I had realised this, I was able to reason that, just because one dog, one day, had a go at me does not mean they are all going to do the same. I talked myself out of my fear and am now quite happy to be around dogs. After that, whenever a fear or negative idea came to mind, I looked to my childhood for the original fear-inducing experience and challenged my assumptions and conditioning.
At the age of 60, I have challenged most of my fears. A lot of them stemmed from ideas about myself that I created to help me deal with emotionally overwhelming experiences when I was too immature to cope with them in other ways.
Liverpool, UK
