All About Coulrophobia, the Fear of Clowns, & How To Overcome it with CBT, Therapy & Counselling in Wolverhampton & West Midlands

What is Coulrophobia?

Coulrophobia is the Fear of Clowns and was reported extensively during 2017 following the spate of people dressing up as clowns and jumping out at people in public spaces.

It is most likely that the genesis of coulrophobia is situated in childhood experiences but may also be linked to horror movies in which clowns are often depicted as ‘evil’ entities.

All phobias, regardless of what the feared object or circumstances are, cause Anxiety and Stress for the sufferer.

Whilst the feared object or situation may seem, to other people, to be ridiculous or silly, the person who suffers from the phobia knows only too well that the Anxiety that they experience is real enough.

We completely understand this and will treat you and your Coulrophobia seriously.

For many years Psychologists have been aware that our minds are more than capable of producing a real biological reaction to any given situation and so as long as the phobic person “believes” that the object or situation they fear represents danger to them, then they will experience real fear.

The majority of people who do suffer with Coulrophobia understand that their fear is “irrational” but continue to experience it regardless of this knowledge. This is why simply being told to “snap out of it” rarely produces a solution!

Symptoms of Coulrophobia

The symptoms of Coulrophobia are very similar to other specific phobias and will often include:

Coulrophobia Symptoms are generally automatic and uncontrollable and can seem to take over a person’s thoughts which frequently leads to extreme measures being taken to avoid the feared object or situation, what are known as “Safety” or “Avoidance” behaviours.

Unfortunately, for the sufferer, these safety behaviours have a paradoxical effect and actually reinforce the phobia rather than solve it!

Coulrophobia may be the result of negative emotional experiences that can be either directly or indirectly linked to the object or situational fear.

Over time, the symptoms often become “normalised” and “accepted” as a limiting belief in that person’s life – “I’ve learnt to live with it.”

In just as many cases, Coulrophobia may have become worse over time as more and more sophisticated safety behaviours and routines are developed.

The good news is that the vast majority of people who suffer from Coulrophobia will find a course of Psychotherapy helps enormously.

Almost every phobia responds well to psychological interventions.

CBT for Coulrophobia

If you’re committed to overcoming your Coulrophobia problems then we highly recommend following our Advanced Tranceformental CBT programme with Paul which is available as an Online Therapy as well as a self-help CBT programme.

The Tranceformental programme is a highly successful & pragmatic psychotherapy course, run over 10 sessions, that will teach you everything you need to know to understand your problem, identify how unhelpful thinking and limiting beliefs might be reinforcing the issue, and then show you how to make any changes to your unhelpful thinking styles or maladaptive safety behaviours that you may have developed as part of your coping strategies.

Our Tranceformental CBT programme is an empirically supported approach used by mental health practitioners around the World.

Free Initial Consultations for Coulrophobia

We offer all prospective clients an initial consultation to discuss your Coulrophobia prior to commencing any treatment plans.

The consultation is free and lasts around 50 minutes.

During this consultation we will discuss the various options that are available to you and make a considered recommendation based on your individual personal circumstances.

Initial consultations are also available as part of our online therapy service.

At TranceForm Psychology we recognise the importance of the therapeutic relationship in helping people to bring about effective change, so its important to be able to ‘meet’ to discuss our change programmes BEFORE proceeding.

Our policy is to help people make a fully balanced & considered decision about undertaking work with us, including both the financial and personal implications.

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Overcome Your Problems with our CBT Course

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is clinically proven to be effective across a range of different mental health problems.

Using our online learning platform, it is available with 2, 5 or 10 sessions of clinical support either face-to-face in the Wombourne offices, or using Zoom video facilities.

It can also be taken as a self help CBT course that will teach you the fundamental tools and techniques used throughout the mental health profession.