Monophobia is an irrational fear of being alone. There are a lot of people who don’t like to be alone but not a lot who actually suffer from monophobia. In order for your fear to reach a level of being a phobia there need to be physical symptoms involved. If there are physical symptoms you are going to want to know what your treatment options are so that you can get over your monophobia.
Monophobia is not the same as being uncomfortable on your own, it only occurs if you have panic attacks when you are left alone. Therefore any treatment for the condition is going to require that the panic attacks be addressed. Therefore almost any treatment option will include lessons on how to control your breathing so that you can avoid panic attacks or get them under control when they do happen. This is an important first step before you move on to the actual treatment of monophobia.
The most common treatment that will be used to treat monophobia is psychotherapy. This will involve talking to a therapist to find the root cause of your fear. This can be a very effective way of treating monophobia but it can be a slow process as it will likely take many months to get at the underlying issue and figure out how to address them. This is why most therapists combine psychotherapy with other treatments that will help you in the short term.
The most common of the treatments that is usually combined with psychotherapy is a program to desensitize the patient. This will require that the patient be left alone for short periods of time so that they can face their fear and get used to being alone. As the therapy progresses the patient will be left alone for longer and longer periods until they reach the point where they can be left alone most of the time. This will not completely get rid of the fear but it will allow people to at least control it so that they are able to function in a normal setting.
Another common treatment that is widely used for monophobia is hypnosis. Hypnosis has a long history of helping people to deal with phobias so it is no surprise that it will work here as well. Basically while you are hypnotized they hypnotist will convince you that you are not afraid of being alone. Again this is not a cure but rather a short term fix that will help you to function.
One last option that your therapist may consider to help treat monophobia is medication. Usually the medication will be to address the anxiety that you feel when you are alone. This is an approach that therapists normally only use as a last resort. This is because they don’t want you to become dependent on the medication. The medication does not deal with the phobia but rather with the symptoms so it is only effective if it is used in conjunction with psychotherapy.
The treatment that will be used to help you deal with monophobia is going to depend on how serious the problem is. What will work for people with mild cases will likely not work if you have a panic attack as soon as you are left alone. There are people with such serious conditions that they can’t even go to the bathroom on their own, it is hard to imagine them being left by themselves to be desensitized. In most cases a combination of methods will be used to help you to get to the point where your monophobia no longer controls your life.