Are you afraid of bad breath?

Are you afraid of bad breath?

bad breath or fear of bad breath is a widespread but little understood illness. The diagnosis is based on the separation between the feeling of the feeling of the bad oral smell of the person and the experience perceived by other experience that there is no unusual smell. Most treatment protocols offer one of two different approaches:

1. Change of behavior or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Everyone encourages changes in thought to encounter the unreality of the symptom. Is often combined with a non-therapeutic partner who reacts comfortably to exhaled breath by commenting on the smell.

2. Psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy combines the current experience (increased belief in the poor smell of the person) with fears before rejection from the past. Through an emotionally correcting experience with the therapist, patients gain trust that their fear of bad smell can be reduced to a treatable symptom than to global fear.

While both therapies offer an important relief (along with medication against anxiety or depression to lower symptom pressure), there is no enough to control the phobic elements of the disorder, which include:

- vigilance to the reaction of others

- reference sign, i.e. that people turn away from them due to rejection, which can lead to self -fulfilling reactions

- panic reactions including flat breathing, sweating, fainting, etc.

The challenge for successful psychotherapy of these people remains the continued existence of the delusion of phobia. Even if you don't smell bad today, how can you trust that your bad breath will not appear again tomorrow?

For example, a patient transferred by his dentist complained about social isolation due to his perception of his breathing smell. After a detailed medical history, the patient admitted that he had no real information about his actual bad breath, but derived from the reactions of the people that he was disgusting to them. His deductions referred to people in the subway who turned away from him or covered her mouth or nose in his presence. He recognized the possibility that he could create self -confidence with others, but felt helpless to prove or refute his theory. When we developed more relationship, he agreed that I was allowed to smell his bad breath by exhaling into my face.

he was stunned when I did not turn away disgusted, but found a completely neutral bad breath. He agreed to recruit a partner -either a family member or a friend -to react to his concern for his mouth. However, he found the "recruitment" process overwhelming and thus retained his individual connection to me as a therapeutic ally. Although we have partially contained his fear, the case shows some of the challenges of treatment:

Challenges for successful treatment:

1. Transfers, usually from dentists, are difficult. Halitophobe should not be confronted directly with the unreality of your symptom. Usually a milder form of "exploring" the problem is more successful, a ability that many traditional dentists may lack.

2. Treatment requires a committed patient. The therapies recommended above require time, effort and training.

3. The process of de stimulation is long-possibly for life-with tips and valleys of the disorder

4. The resistance to the change in belief in the reality of her breathing smell can be accompanied by an increased fear in other functions of everyday life. This should be understood and prepared before treatment with bad breath.

treatment recommendations;

There is no literature on the use of group psychotherapy for the treatment of bad breath. I imagine that the principles of AA sponsoring (joint belief in the lack of control over the symptom) through and by other group members and the availability on call in crisis can be an important basis for a successful solution to bad breath.

I do not think that the model is sufficient for itself. Aa is devoted to the use of substance and has a "black and white" test that is missing. The fear of a bad breath, if it is not treated, is global and is based on self -related tests of the environment.

A group experience would optimally benefit from traditional methods of group psychotherapy that concentrate on how our current life - often unconsciously - plays out experiences from our previous life experiences. Without the depth of understanding that group members can offer, the AA model can relieve the symptom without clearly understanding the meaning of the symptom in the life of this person. In this way, the bad breath can lack emotional maturity in order to completely establish the connection between its current symptom and other life events. A mature therapy group actually reflects the experience of the re -enactment during the group. Emotionally educated and resilient groups can tell their participants the effects of their behavior, their language and emotions. And possibly other group members represent a basis for their fear.

The victim problems in bad breath are indeed high. For fear of rejection, panic often exists over the entry into social relationships. The AA model is a starting point for confrontation with symptom control. However, individual treatment, which takes into account both the etiology of the symptom and the change in behavior, would be helpful. Optimal would be an ongoing psychotherapy group that dedicates the bad breath, but also questions of adaptation to life after a life full of delusion isolation and fear.

naturopath psychotherapy

alternative practitioners psychotherapy best in our free naturopath directory. To display all naturopath psychotherapy, please click here.