When people talk about fear of the dark, they often imagine young children, not people of all ages. I have seen many clients for this type of anxiety, and in many instances, the client creates the fear by imagining their own versions of an internal horror movie. Sometimes the fear stems from a specific experience in the past, and sometimes the client is unaware of what triggered it. It doesn’t matter; the key is to change the thinking process, which, in turn, changes the emotional response. I have seen clients of all ages for this issue, the youngest being an 8-year-old I saw in Budapest. The key to helping with this issue is to focus on how the person is thinking and feeling, which then creates the unhelpful behaviour. Fear of the dark, like all phobias, is an overreaction to a situation rather than just an experience of “anxiety”. By focusing on the process by which the person creates the unhelpful feeling, it’s possible to change the entire experience quite quickly, and, of course, with this behaviour, it’s easy to test and check that the change is useful in place.
At my Leeds hypnotherapy practice, I recommend 2-3 sessions for this and achieve really excellent results in resolving it.