Worthing Hypnotherapy To Overcome Driving Anxiety
Do you dream of simply cruising along, hands resting quietly on the steering wheel, head nodding to the radio, whether you’re driving on a motorway or an unfamiliar country road?
Would you like to learn how to feel calmer, safer, and more in control when you drive?
How much better would life be if you could drive where you want when you want without overthinking the route, the traffic, and parking spaces once you get there?
My name is Alex Vrettos, I’m a Therapeutic Hypnotist based in Worthing, and I've been helping anxious drivers since 2011. In person and online.
Most clients are happy with what we achieve in three sessions
I recommend my three-session structure for £270, but a pay-as-you-go option is available.
You do not need to spend the rest of your life dreading journeys or feeling dependent on others.
Driving Anxiety Testimonial
Thank you for your help. I sought your support because I was feeling anxious, angry, out of my depth, and very nervous about driving and flying. Thanks to our sessions, I have seen a great improvement in my confidence regarding both; where I once felt overwhelmed, I now feel much calmer, more composed, and in control. I truly appreciate your help, as the difference in my confidence is significant, and I would highly recommend your services to others.
Let’s face it, public transport in this country leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s frustrating and embarrassing to have to rely on others to get you around, especially when you have the vehicle, the training and the licence.
The small familiar roads with minimal traffic may feel okay - you can drive - but open it up to fast main roads, descending into the darkness of tunnels, across the high span of a bridge or simply not knowing what is around the next corner can feel overwhelming.
It’s embarrassing to see how relaxed others feel, the simplicity of slipping into autopilot for some, when for you, driving means sweaty palms on the steering wheel, racing thoughts suspecting every driver is a psychopath or every turn is too tight, heart in your mouth and stomach on the floor with the pedals. Panic is constantly threatening to take over.
Does this sound familiar?
You know you’re safe, but your nervous system disagrees.
The thought of going anywhere new is ruined by the fear of the journey.
Days of dread before a trip.
You feel a burden on family and friends due to your unnecessary reliance on them.
Or your world is just much smaller than you would like it to be.
So why does flying feel so frightening to you?
Why Do You Get Anxious When Driving?
If you experience anxiety when driving, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Your mind is actually working exactly as it was designed to.
You like being alive, so it’s natural for your mind to question being in a metal bubble hurtling along the road with hundreds of others, or just zipping past the blurring scenery. Your brain is wired for survival.
Recognition of your speed, proximity of other vehicles and their behaviour, the flow of traffic that is outside of your control, unfamiliar twists and turns. Those thoughts are completely normal. Add bad weather conditions or darkness, and the escalation of those thoughts is not surprising.
Almost everyone who drives has had similar thoughts at some point. The difference is that for most people, those thoughts quickly pass into the background without bother.
When you struggle with driving anxiety, those thoughts feel convincing and emotionally real. Your imagination starts treating possibilities as danger. Your thoughts about accidents or mistakes feel more real than the natural rhythm of the journey, and so that rhythm is disrupted.
Once that happens, your nervous system responds as though you are in genuine danger, even while you are just driving a vehicle you know how to drive.
Driving Anxiety Treatment With Hypnotherapy
During your sessions with me, you will learn how the mind and body work together to create the fear response.
Together, we’ll work on changing your relationship with the thoughts and feelings that currently feel so threatening, helping your nervous system respond in a calmer way.
Instead of becoming pulled into catastrophic “what if?” thinking and panic, you can allow yourself to drift comfortably into the natural rhythm of driving and trusting yourself to be okay.
We’ll mentally rehearse driving with a cool head and a calm heart, through tunnels, over bridges, on motorways or unfamiliar roads so that your nervous system can accept that those environments are safe.
Imagine driving in the flow of traffic, noticing the 'what if' thought, and simply smiling at how much that used to bother you.
See yourself receiving an invitation to a friend’s new place up North and knowing it’ll be easy to get there.
Enjoy the enjoyment of simply driving your car - the two of you are finally friends.
Imagine arriving excited at your destination instead of emotionally exhausted, and then being able to relax and enjoy your visit without a growing sense of dread for the drive home.
It is all achievable.
What Help For Flying Anxiety Looks Like With Me
I generally work within a three-session structure, although some people choose to have additional sessions depending on their goals and previous experiences.
Session 1: We’ll explore your experience of fear and help you understand how the mind and body work together to create the fear response. I’ll also introduce you to hypnosis through some simple experiential exercises and thought experiments, which can be good fun, so you can feel comfortable in your understanding of hypnosis and begin seeing your anxiety in a different way.
Session 2: Using hypnosis, we’ll explore where this fearful pattern may have come from and why your mind learned to respond this way in the first place. From there, we can begin reshaping those responses into something calmer and more helpful.
Session 3: We’ll strengthen the progress you’ve made, build confidence around future flights, and help your mind and body become more familiar with responding calmly to the experience of flying.
If you'd like to explore whether this approach feels right for you, you’re welcome to get in touch.
Driving Anxiety FAQs
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Driving can be overcome.
The problem is not the driving, the road, the vehicle an dit is probably not your ability either. The anxiety comes from how you are thinking about these things. Thinking can be change.
Hypnosis can be a very effective way to help you change your thinking.
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Different situations create different thoughts, and it is your thoughts that determine how you feel.
If you are driving ona motorway you are probably thinking about all the other vehicles travelling at speed, driving along country roads you are are probably thining thoughts about what is around the next corner, in a tunnel you might be thinking about the enclosed space.
Many of these thoughts are probably ‘what if…’ thoughts. Anxiety happens when you mistake the ‘what if…?’ thoughts as a threat so that your body goes into stress response.
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You can learn to feel confident driving again after an accident.
You have driven hundreds or thousands of times, but one journey went wrong. Anxiety after an accident is experienced because your mind is fixated on the one time it went wrong, and imagining it will happen again.
Hypnosis can be an effective tool to open up the mind’s focus from that one time and remember all the times were fine, so that becomes your expectation once again.