It always brings me great pleasure to see positive stories in the news about hypnosis. Today's article comes from the BBC and is about London Zoo's Friendly Spider Programme. They have been helping people with a fear of spiders (arachnophobia) by using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and -- more importantly for me -- hypnosis.

I don't quite have an array of exotic spiders in my office to help with arachnophobia, but I have had great successes using hypnosis to assist my clients. And it's not just spiders; I can help with a number of different phobias, from flying to fruit. This is because hypnosis is all about changing the automatic reaction to the object/situation that triggers the negative (but perfectly natural) fight, flight, freeze feelings.

BBC News - Arachnophobia: Could you conquer your fear?

Phobia warning: if you currently suffer from a phobia of spiders, do take care opening the link as there are quite a few close-up images of spiders.