People with claustrophobia suffer from fears involving enclosed spaces or places where it may be impossible to exit quickly, for example, trains, airplanes or elevators. Some people even get claustrophobic inside MRI scanners. Due to their anxiety, claustrophobic people often try to stay away from closed-off places. Sufferers also tend to sit close to exits or along the walls of a room, versus being in the center. Claustrophobia sufferers frequently experience panic attacks when they begin to feel "stuck" or enclosed. For many, being in a tight area is as alarming as the thought of being buried alive.

Experiencing a panic attack in a confining space can be a scary time for claustrophobic people and people surrounding them. When an individual's claustrophobia is triggered, they will often have panic attacks, difficulty breathing, nausea, passing out, and other, often irrational, responses. A person can become claustrophobic at any time or because of a traumatic incident, but it often starts at an early age.

Claustrophobia may be prompted by various situations, which may be different between individuals. For example, some people may only feel claustrophobic while riding an elevator, while others find large crowds trigger their condition. In any situation, claustrophobia and similar phobias often interfere with people's day-to-day lives and happiness. Phobia sufferers may develop avoidant behaviors and experience a lower quality of life as they plan out their daily lives around their phobia.

For many claustrophobes, the aspect of embarrassment or humiliation over their fears is as bad as the the phobic condition itself. Some phobia sufferers realize that their feelings are overblown and irrational, but cannot seem to prevent themselves from losing self-control. This is due to the fact that phobias are rooted deep within the unconscious, which no amount of conscious effort can be fully effective in controlling. This makes treating phobias particularly challenging.

Claustrophobia may be cured with anti-anxiety medication or therapy. Hypnosis therapy is an ideal, safe and non-invasive form of therapy with no side effects. It works by treating the root causes of fear in the unconscious to quickly eliminate a phobia. A system that has Ericksonian hypnosis therapy techniques and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) can be used to treat a phobia. This innovative program uses a variety of techniques to help people beat their fears.

The first step in the cure process is helping the phobia sufferer feel calm and stress-free. Hypnosis techniques have long been used as a form of stress-relief therapy, to help people clear their minds and feel peaceful.

Conventional hypnosis has used direct, post-hypnotic suggestions to help relieve phobias. The disadvantage of the direct suggestion is that the conscious mind tends to reject being simply "told" how to behave. Many people throw up mental barricades and reject suggestions. In today's world, men and women are especially prone to ignore direct suggestions because we tend to be independent minded people who question everything.

Relaxation is the very essence of hypnosis. In the calm state, instead of using direct post-hypnotic suggestions, a different approach known as systematic desensitization can help cure a phobia through visual images.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy uses a more refined approach than conventional hypnosis therapy. It contains indirect suggestions masked in fascinating metaphors and stories to interest the unconscious and persuade it to follow a desirable, phobia-free line of thought. Since indirect suggestions don't need to be adapted for a single phobia like direct post-hypnotic suggestions do, a single good Ericksonian hypnotic therapy program will work to effectively treat any phobia or even more than one phobia.

NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is a modern form of therapy that many well trained hypnotherapists have adopted. The best NLP technique for extinguishing a phobia is called the Visual - Kinesthetic Disassociation, or V/K. The V/K is recognized as the single session phobia cure, and with good reason. Irrational or panic reactions (attacks) take place because traumatic feelings are associated with and triggered by mental imagery. With the V/K, the traumatic feelings are disconnected from the mental imagery - often in one quick session, and the phobia is virtually gone.

People suffering from claustrophobia can get relief by using hypnotherapy. The combination of Ericksonian hypnotherapy with NLP techniques will help all people escape their fears. Hypnotherapy has helped many people feel secure and confident in situations where before, they would have suffered a breakdown. The techniques of hypnotherapy have provided phenomenal benefits for people afflicted with phobias and continue to improve lives each and every day.