Sydney Phobia Clinic

01/09/2025

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the iconic Sydney Marathon yesterday which stormed past the Sydney Phobia Clinic office at the 13k mark, amongst other impressive Sydney landmarks!

30/06/2025

Another day, another client, another therapy dog.
Yogi was the perfect match for a recent client who made wonderful gains approaching and ultimately patting him 🥰
Yogi made himself quite at home but being a therapy dog for treating dog phobia is exhausting work and we hear Yogi slept well afterwards!

22/06/2025

Booked a holiday but dreading the flight? ✈️

You might be experiencing aviophobia—also known as fear of flying. It’s more common than you think, and the good news is: it’s treatable.

Our latest blog post breaks down what causes aviophobia, why avoidance makes it worse, and how structured treatment, including virtual reality therapy, can help you overcome it in just weeks.

Whether it’s turbulence, claustrophobia, or loss of control, we’ll help you get to the root of your fear and build the tools to fly again, calmly and confidently.

Read the full post: https://www.sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au/blog/fear-of-flying-treatment-how-to-beat-aviophobia

27/05/2025

Please join us in congratulating Sophia for completing her clinical psychology registrar period and obtaining her endorsement for Clinical Psychology area of practice! As we have emphasised before, this is no small feat! Obtaining Clinical Psychology practice endorsement requires an additional supervision, practice and professional development period on top of the many, many years of study, research, and practice through undergraduate, honours, and masters degrees at university. We’re proud of you, Sophia, you’ve been a valued member of Sydney Phobia Clinic from behind the reception desk to inside the therapy room.
Sophia currently works at SPC on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday and works across our phobia programs, including Fear of Flying program, and sees OCD clients.
If you would like to book in with Sophia, contact admin on 02 85408739 or admin@sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au

01/05/2025

Please join us in congratulating Claudia for completing her clinical psychology registrar period and obtaining her endorsement for Clinical Psychology area of practice! This represents the culmination of many, many years of study, research, supervision, professional development, and practice. We’re proud of you, Claudia, you’re an asset to Sydney Phobia Clinic!
Claudia currently works at SPC on Thursdays and Fridays and works across our phobia programs, is accredited to deliver the Cool Kids program, sees OCD clients, and also conducts child, adolescent, and adult psychometric assessments for specific learning disorders, intellectual ability/disability, and ADHD.
If you would like to book in with Claudia, contact admin on 02 85408739 or admin@sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au

02/04/2025

The Flight Experience simulator waiting for our clients today- 3 Fear of Flying clients will be taking an education exposure flight around Sydney today in a 737 flight simulator for their final session of their Fear of Flying program.

If you have a Fear of Flying, we want to help! Contact us and enquire about our Fear of Flying program run in conjunction with Flight Experience nationally!

11/03/2025

We can help if you have also felt more anxious about air travel this year.

According to a new poll commissioned by TPG and conducted by The Harris Poll, most Americans (72%) believe airline travel is safe now, but nearly two in three (65%) say they are more nervous about flying in light of the recent safety incidents.

Astonishingly, nearly nine in 10 Americans (88%) admit to a fear of flying.

While more than one in four (27%) say air travel is "very safe," another 28% do not believe airline travel is safe right now; 8% believe it is "not safe at all."

The Harris Poll found the following results:

"About 2 in 3 Americans (65%) say recent airline safety incidents make them more nervous about flying, with 1 in 4 (25%) saying they are much more nervous about flying now. About 3 in 10 Americans (29%) say the recent airline safety incidents do not make them any more nervous about flying, and 6% have not heard of any recent incidents."

In our survey conducted from Feb. 28 to March 4, 51% of respondents said they are nervous when flying in an airplane, and 20% said they are "very nervous."

Despite that high number, 52% of respondents said the fear has never affected their travel plans.

Meanwhile, more than two in five Americans say they are not nervous, with 19% saying they are "not at all nervous."

However, these events are starting to affect the aviation industry. More than one in three (36%) Americans admit that their fear of flying has led them to change their travel plans; 22% said they took an alternative form of transportation, and 11% have actually canceled plans entirely due to a fear of flying.

What do you think of these results? Have you changed any upcoming travel plans?

Find the full details of the survey here: https://thepointsguy.com/news/fear-of-flying-tpg-survey/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=tpg-o-social&utm_campaign=dhfacebook&utm_content=app.dashsocial.com%2Fthe-points-guy%2Flibrary%2Fmedia%2F510797734

📸: Getty Images

03/03/2025

Have you ever wondered what impact movies have on the development of phobias? Director Dr Corrie Ackland joined Dr Ann Jones on ‘What the Duck?’ to discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Link in bio and below.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/what-the-duck/hollywood-lied-to-us-the-birds/104892152

24/02/2025

At the start of the working week, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the week to come. If you look far enough ahead, you can always make your tasks seem unmanageable.

Anxious people, in particular, have a habit of ‘psyching themselves out’ in this way. It makes you feel as though you have to tackle everything at once—which no one would be able to do!

With this in mind, try to remember that the overwhelmed feeling is an illusion. You only ever have to take things one step at a time. Try to pull your focus back to the present, to the task at hand.

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Get in touch at admin@sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au or call (02)85408739

14/02/2025

WHY IS IT SO COMMON TO STRUGGLE WITH ANXIETY?
(How is being anxious like having a sweet tooth?)

One reason for the prevalence of anxiety-related issues‪ is the MISMATCH between our modern environment and that of our ancestors.‬

This is also why we tend to have a SWEET TOOTH—craving and enjoying sugar so much that it’s easy for us to over-eat it. Sugar was scarce for our ancestors, so we evolved a taste for sugar that would strongly motivate us to seek it out. Now that our environment is full of sugar, the same taste for sugar can instead cause problems for us.

A similar mismatch lies behind our anxiousness. Our ancestors’ environments were far more dangerous and life-threatening, so we evolved a proneness to fear and anxiety that would strongly motivate us to be cautious and keep our selves and loved ones alive. Now that our environment is far safer, the same inclination often leads to anxiety that’s excessive or inappropriate.
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Get in touch at admin@sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au or call (02)85408739

08/02/2025

Anxiety makes you avoid things.

But also...

Avoiding things makes you anxious.

(That’s how negative reinforcement works.)

Anxiety’s the emotional state that pushes you to avoid something.

It does this by making you feel bad until you decide on avoidance. The bad feeling then goes away, which reinforces your inclination to avoid. Next time, anxiety pushes you even harder to avoid that thing.

The only sure remedy is careful exposure.

By resisting the urge to avoid something at the height of your anxiety about it, you interrupt negative reinforcement. Next time, anxiety may not push you as hard to avoid it. And even if it does, you’ll have started to learn how to resist its push, and to build confidence that you’re capable of resisting.

Either way, the more you resist avoiding things, the less power anxiety has to make you avoid them.
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Get in touch at admin@sydneyphobiaclinic.com.au or call (02)85408739

06/02/2025

What are the psychological mechanisms behind virtual reality’s success? A recent article by the Association for Psychological Science outlines theories of
1) expectancy violation
2) emotional processing theory, and
3) self-efficacy theory
A link to this article is on our bio!