Into The Panic Room on 91Èȱ¬ Three
Three days, two phobias, one Panic Room – starts 10 April 2007 at 9pm on 91Èȱ¬ Three
Introduction
This Spring, 91Èȱ¬ Three explores the frightening and debilitating world of extreme phobias in a new six-part series The Panic Room.
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Imagine your worst fear is spiders. Now imagine being in a room full of them, they're crawling all over you and you're unable to escape. Throughout the series people living with a range of phobias, from spiders to buttons, cockroaches to cats, confront their worst fears in The Panic Room.
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The Panic Room is the ultimate exposure therapy – a self-contained and enclosed space, which uses 360-degree projected images, plus custom-designed infrastructure and state-of-the-art light and sound techniques to create a whole new world for each phobic – one in which their darkest fears grow and come to life, before their eyes.
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Anything could lie behind the doors of The Panic Room – whether it is just pictures of the phobic object or the re-creation of a real world worst nightmare, each visit to The Panic Room ensures an intense sensory experience.
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By confronting their phobias in a controlled environment, the programme aims to help the phobic confront and ultimately overcome their worst fears in only three days.
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Two psychologists with expertise in treating phobias have devised The Panic Room treatment process. It will use various techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy to hypnotism to guide the phobics through their treatment.
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The intensity of their phobia is gauged in the first Panic Room by means of a ten-point Fear Rating scale. This is then immediately followed by therapy from the leading phobia expert, who will prepare them for the next Panic Room which will be bigger and even more challenging.
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After more intensive treatment they will face the ultimate test, coming face-to-face with their worst nightmares, in the final Panic Room – the biggest and scariest of them all.
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Dr Lucy Atcheson, a Harley Street consultant, is a counselling psychologist and psychotherapist, who believes that when it comes to phobias a direct and determined approach is the only way to get results.
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She says "The way I treat phobias is through Cognitive Behaviour Therapy which is very successful, as it takes the person out of the sphere of irrationality back into the rational."
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Lucy believes The Panic Room is a really positive environment to help people to face up to their worst fears: "The Panic Room is an excellent treatment for phobias. It actually presents them with graded steps of their phobic objects so they can really confront their fears in a controlled safe way."
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Psychologist Dr Felix Economakis specialises in hypnotherapy and other methods of alternative therapy which he believes are highly effective on phobias.
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"I mostly use hypnotherapy when dealing with phobias. When a person is focused on a phobia that is all they can see, hypnosis allows a person to be calmer and to look at it another way where they learn an adaptive response. In fact the object is not a danger and it is not going to kill them.
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"Everything done in The Panic Room proves to a person that they can control their inner response. It is enough to challenge them without overwhelming them."
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Executive Producer Kieron Collins said: "We've witnessed some astonishing journeys while making The Panic Room. We've seen some frightened and desperate people who have been gripped by their phobia for years.
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"But they have been brave enough to go through The Panic Room experience and they've now re-gained their lives and taken back control. It's shocking and sometimes uncomfortable to watch – but it works."
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