Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism

by Stanley D. Rosenberg

Psychologists and therapists often focus on the object of fear, such as heights (acrophobia), not having enough space (claustrophobia), or spiders (arachnophobia). Their diagnoses focus on the triggers, which may or may not be easily linked to specific biographical events. A phobia might be caused by experiences from the past—for example, when someone encountered a threatening person or a life-threatening situation. A phobia can just as easily come from a virtual experience, in which the person suffering the phobia did not actually experience the event—for example, it might have come from someone else telling a story, or from watching a scene in a movie.