Hi everyone,

So I'm having a counselling dilemma right now. I have severe emetophobia and have had it for the past 12 years. I severely restrict my food, abuse substances, don't go out, don't eat well, have panic attacks often, have very bad anemia. So, I've been seeing my counselor for about a year now. We talk about all sorts of things, not just my phobia. Right now, we're focusing on my phobia again because I relapsed bad.

So, I was looking through this forum and online and I know that it's generally a good idea to work with someone who is trained in the area that you're having trouble in (so, if I'm an emetophobic, I should be seeing someone who has training working with emetophobics). My counselor and I have a good relationship and she's done a lot of work with trauma and anxiety, but she hasn't had specialized training with emetophobia as far as I know. I think I might be her first case, maybe.

So we were talking and she said that she wants me to slowly try exposure therapy. Sometimes though, she says that if I were to throw up, she would be there to help me. I've read online that the goal in therapy for emetophobics isn't to make them s*, but to work on the anxiety surrounding the phobia. For me, when I was 11 years old, I had a traumatic incident where I was left pretty much alone to v* for a long time. And that's where my phobia began. My counselor says that she thinks the way for me to heal from that incident is to throw up, but with someone around to take care of me, because that's what I didn't receive when I was younger.

Does that make sense? So I'm wondering whether or not she's using the best approach with me and my condition, especially since I've been reading online that the goal of emetophobic therapy is working on the anxiety, not so much that you need to be s* and somewhat re-create the traumatic incident but what certain elements changed.

I'm on the waitlist for an emetophobic therapist right now, but the waitlist is 3-4 months. Anyways, what do you all think? Is she going to be using the right approach with me? Any therapists out there that can help? I'm just really unsure with the method she wants to try. I don't know a thing about healing from trauma.