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Ann. psychophysiol. 
ISSN 2412-3188 (Online) | 2410-1354 (Print) 

APP| Published By AEIRC| https://doi.org/10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.107-111 

 

 
Case Study                                                                                  

Treatment of severe anxiety and social 
phobia by hypnosis and neurolinguistic 
programming- A case report 
Samina Malik1, Maheen Mirza2, Mohammad Fayyaz3, Arif Malik4 
1Department of Physiology, University College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of  
  Lahore, Lahore-Pakistan. 
2Lahore Grammar School, Lahore-Pakistan.  
3Basic Health Unit Leil, Lahore Cantt, Lahore-Pakistan.            
4Institute of Applied Sciences, Minhaj University, Lahore-Pakistan.  
 

Abstract 
Background: Hypnosis is being used in combination with different forms of 
psychotherapy nowadays, such as neuro-linguistic programming, to work as a 
complementary treatment. This pairing allows for more targeted and patient-
specific approaches to treat psychological disorders, phobias, and pain. An 
example is our previous study, in which hypnosis was used to treat tobacco-pan 
addiction. Following a similar model in this case study, we investigate the 
effectiveness of hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming as treatments for 
anxiety and phobias.               
Case Presentation: We discuss a case of a 20-year-old boy with severe anxiety and 
social phobia who was already taking antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants, 
but they did not aid in treating his condition. He was then treated with 
hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming to address the rooted triggers 
for his phobia. A thorough three-hour session revealed the details of each 
traumatic event. Each incident was isolated and changed in the patient's 
subconscious mind while he was hypnotized to remove that incident's role as a 
trigger. 
Management & Results: The patient reported approximately seventy percent 
recovery immediately after the first session in terms of rebuilding his confidence. 
The recovery was measured on DASS-21 and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). 
The severity of his phobia was significantly controlled in a short-span of time, with 
almost no episode after the first hypnosis and NLP session.                         
Conclusion: Hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming is an effective 
treatment for anxiety disorder and social phobia. It is also time-efficient and 
produces better results than other forms of treatment without accompanying side 
effects. 
 

Keywords 
Hypnosis, Neurolinguistic Programming, Anxiety, Phobia. 

 

 

Citation: Malik S, Mirza M, Fayyaz M, 
Malik A. Treatment of severe anxiety 
and social phobia by hypnosis and 
neurolinguistic programming- A Case 
Report. APP. 2021;8(2): 107-111 
 
Corresponding Author Email: 
drsemymalik58@gmail.com 
 
DOI: 10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.107-
111 
 
Received 16/06/2021 
 
Accepted 08/11/2021 
 
Published 01/12/2021 
 
Copyright © The Author(s). 2021 This  
 is an open access article distributed 
under the terms of the Creative 
Commons Attribution 4.0 International 
License, which permits unrestricted use, 
distribution, and reproduction in any 
medium, provided the original author 
and source are credited.  
 

 

Funding: The author(s) received no 
specific funding for this work. 

Conflicts of Interests: The authors 
have declared that no competing 
interests exist. 
 

https://doi.org/10.29052/2412-3188.v8.i2.2021.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)


 
 
 

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Introduction  
Our previous study established that 
hypnosis can avoid a bad habit like tobacco-
pan addiction1. Hypnosis has evolved 
beyond mere suggestion in the patient’s 
unconscious state and allows the patient’s 
mind to take over and access stored 
information2. This development has 
expanded the use of hypnosis as a treatment 
and effective intervention for several 
medical problems such as burns, allergies, 
sexual dysfunction, infertility, and 
insomnia2,3. In our case, hypnosis works as a 
highly effective intervention for anxiety3. 
Anxiety disorders and phobias are 
prevalent, debilitating mental health 
problems that impact the day-to-day lives of 
the sufferers4,5. By trying to avoid the specific 
triggers and fears, they limit their quality of 
life, which may be a risk to their health if 
they are phobic to dental treatment, for 
example6. These disorders are complex 
problems with underlying reasons that 
require intense therapy to uncover and 
treat7. This is where hypnotherapy and 
neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) come 
in to treat the problem at the root-level7.  
 
NLP is a form of psychotherapy that detects 
triggers, termed as 'anchors,' responsible for 
the phobia, in the patient's subconscious 
state5,8. These anchors allow access to the 
patient's emotional state at the time of 
creating the trigger through age regression, 
which is then altered to erase the root cause 
of the phobia5, 6. In this case, we use hypnosis 
and NLP to treat a 20-year-old boy with 
severe anxiety and social phobia that 
prevents him from interacting with people.   
 

Case Presentation 
A doctor referred a 20-year-old young boy to 
our coauthor, a general physician with 
expertise in hypnosis.    His widowed mother 
brought this boy with complaints of severe 
anxiety and social phobia. This condition 

adversely affected his comfort zone each 
time he was exposed to a social gathering or 
environment.  
 
He had a medicinal history of intake of 
antipsychotics and antidepressants 
prescribed by a psychiatrist. However, the 
medication only resulted in sedating him 
instead of relieving his anxiety. The signs 
and symptoms included anxiety tremors, 
dysarthria, severe lack of confidence, and 
poor self-esteem. He even wished to commit 
suicide, being unable to cope with his 
situation. He was a second-year 
physiotherapy student who needed to 
overcome his phobia to be able to work and 
perform in the academic environment on 
campus. After informed consent, the patient 
was drifted into a good trance 
(subconscious/altered state induced by 
hypnosis) in an hour which was in a way 
similar to anesthetic-state induced before 
surgery. Once he was in this state, age 
regression by NLP was used to identify the 
first trigger, during which the subconscious 
mind was opened to approach its stored 
memory files by traveling back in time to 
pinpoint the issue responsible for the 
situation. With the identification of each 
trigger during NLP, while the subconscious 
mind was hypnotized, the memory's sub-
modalities (picture, sound, and emotions) 
were changed in a way that the subconscious 
mind was led to believe that this data had 
been tampered with. This allowed the 
memory to be removed or reshaped, and 
with it, the anchor responsible for the 
phobia. This was done for each anchor 
recalled by the patient. The first traumatic 
event witnessed by the patient was his 
father's demise when the patient was only 
three years old. Despite his young age at that 
time, he could vividly recall details, like the 
gathering of people around his father when 
he was on his deathbed wearing a white 
sheet, indicating the impact of that event on 
his psyche. The patient's emotional state at 



 

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the time of that event in his memory was 
altered so that it ceased to exist as an anchor. 
The second traumatic event recovered from 
his subconscious mind happened in his 
school days at age eleven. He was bullied 
ruthlessly by peers for being handicapped 
due to an abnormality of the hip joint. He 
could recall the names of his class-fellows 
who called him humiliating names and even 
physically harassed him. The NLP session 
continued for three hours. His ill memories 
were altered at a subconscious level. They 
were replaced by a narrative in which he was 
presented with an imaginary stick to drive 
away from the bullying boys, to deflect their 
verbal and physical attacks.  
 
At age eighteen, the third traumatic event 
was when the patient had to join an academy 
to boost his academic performance. 
Although he had no prior bad experience 
there, he experienced severe anxiety and a 
consuming fear of being ridiculed right at 
the door of the academy due to the negative 
data broadcasted by his subconscious mind 
though nobody attempted to do so. This 
resulted from the trauma he had faced in his 
life previously, which did not allow him to 
have new experiences either. With hypnosis 
and NLP during the two sessions of three 
hours duration, the triggers were identified 
and resolved (at the level of the subconscious 
mind) to aid in the treatment of the patient’s 
phobia. 
 

Management & Results 
Immediately after the session, the patient 

self-reported around 70% recovery and 

expressed that he was regaining confidence. 

After mutual consent, the patient tapered off 

his antipsychotic drugs. The recovery was 

followed up on DASS-219 for one month at 

two points after taking the baseline / before 

treatment levels of depression, anxiety, and 

stress, i-e., two weeks after the 1st session 

and then two weeks after the 2nd session. 

The depression (D), anxiety (A), and stress 

(S) calculated before treatment were 42 

(extremely severe), followed by D-34 

(extremely severe), A-34 (extremely severe), 

and S-32 (severe) after the first hypnotic and 

NLP session. It was further reduced to the 

values of D-28 (the borderline between 

extremely severe and severe), A-26 

(extremely severe), and S-30 (severe) after 

2nd session. The patient is still under 

treatment, and further recovery is expected 

based on the previous results.  

 

Likewise, improvement in self-esteem was 

calculated on Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale 

(RSES), ranging from 10-40 in score10. The 

baseline self-esteem was measured to be 10, 

followed by an increase to 27 after 1st session 

and then a slight dip of 21 after the 2nd 

session. The self-esteem level may improve 

with subsequent sessions in light of these 

supportive results. 

 

However, there is no way to declare how 

much of each therapeutic approach resulted 

in the change.   

 

Discussion 
Hypnotherapy treats different mental health 
problems, but its effectiveness with each 
kind varies. A research team conducted a 
meta-analysis at The University of Hartford 
to test the efficacy of hypnosis in treating 
anxiety. Hypnosis intervention was 
compared with a control condition in 
alleviating anxiety, with the initial results 
yielding that the hypnosis group reduced 
anxiety more than 79% of the control group. 
With additional trials, this figure increased 
to 84%. This study also concluded that 
hypnosis combined with other forms of 
psychotherapy is more effective than a single 
form of treatment3. 



 

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Another study on the role of hypnosis in 
treating anxiety and panic attacks yielded a 
similar outcome that using clinical hypnosis 
is an effective treatment for anxiety11. A 
factor considered in a study done in Moscow 
University was hypnotizability as an 
indicator of the level of hypnosis and how 
the change in level could affect treatment12. 
It was found that NLP was significantly 
more effective in high hypnotizable subjects 
than in low hypnotizable subjects13.  
 
This means that the depth of the trance due 
to the patient's cooperation can significantly 
influence the treatment and is an essential 
factor to be considered while obtaining 
informed consent to carry out the session.   
 

Conclusion 
This case report established that with three-

hour hypnosis and NLP session, massive 

improvement can be obtained in recovery 

from phobias and lack of confidence. Hence, 

it is a time-efficient treatment for anxiety and 

phobia-related disorders. The study is being 

brought to the limelight after informed 

consent to open new horizons for clinicians 

and researchers and to introduce this 

noninvasive treatment to those who may 

need it. By using hypnosis and identifying 

the triggers through neurolinguistic 

programming, a patient can be counseled 

and guided in the subconscious state to 

overcome the fears and deal with the root 

cause of the phobia. 

 

Acknowledgment  
We would like to thank the patient for his 
consent to publish this report. 
 

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