Like millions of Americans, Howie Mandel suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, and several phobias. Life strategist Gary Coxe joins Howie and The Doctors to discuss how phobias can be easily retrained in our brains.
We’re back with comedian and television personality howie mandel who like millions of americans suffers from some phobias and you know you talked earlier about your struggles with ocd but throughout the first segment you talked about growing up just so fearful of hand germs shaking people’s hands germophobia is something our germaphobes there are a lot of people
Out there with that gary is someone who has on our stage i have seen you work miracles with people who literally come on stage and we’re talk about everything from phobias of snakes dogs so every single thing and you are able to take these people and despite what their phobia may be i’ve seen you you know cure them in a matter of 30 minutes what is it got one common
Theme or cause of certain phobias when you’re working with people usually it’s an experience of some kind sometimes it’s a dramatic experience and then once the the dramatic experience happens then we we play the story for the rest of our lives and if we don’t change it we get deeper and deeper and deeper into it it was howie’s story i got bit by a sand fly when i
Was a little kid and it laid its larvae in me and i had these like mosquito bites and i would scratch them and then under my skin they would crawl away i was maybe 7 years old and i had these things living in me crawling and i went one hand area it was mostly on the hands and then i went to a dermatologist and they took me to a i’m in a book i’m in a medical book
You could read about and and they try to burn it with liquid nitrogen and they didn’t and and that’s a little kid oh yeah i was trying to sustain every night my mom took me wouldn’t we wouldn’t go to the doctor and we would rub it with alcohol until the skin would break her to bleed and we would remove the eggs from my the living larvae were a period of yeah it
Took it took about six months to until i got the last one so if you did that on a lot of kids seven years old did have this challenge – i mean that’s that that’s easy so yeah everything you’re doing you’re trying to avoid having an experience you know what i understand now but if i didn’t have that i would have something else you know because i have ocd which is a
Another issue and it doesn’t people with ocd aren’t always afraid of germs people with ocd need to check the stove a thousand times any which i also do when you talk about disturbing thoughts and helping people turn them off you know even using an example on our stage i i know that you were talking about using tickling as a simple example of how you can turn off
Yeah a change i believe um you’re ticklish i understand right so you want me to do a little demonstration another all right i’ll come on let’s do a little something right here all right so we’re you ticklish yet on your ribs are all right okay but you show me all right my parent i think my father you say we must have been something for elders so now go ahead and
Tickle yourself why aren’t you laughing i don’t know so what you’re saying is if you tickle you you’re not ticklish but if i tickle you or somebody else tickles you you’d be ticklish alright okay now watch i’m gonna show you how fast we can change that i can’t even look it alright so i want you to give me your finger give me your finger all right so i want you
To tickle yourself nothing little bit cuz you’re holding it so you’re not ticklish there okay ticklish now okay now my finger you ticklish that wasn’t my finger that’s my finger and your finger ticklish you feel my finger i feel your fear okay how you take this error your finger only me and you your finger only me and you my finger let go your finger only okay
Me and you and let go me just only you feel anything yeah i feel it but are you ticklish now no but if you were to come at me with your hand were you ticklish like that before if i did that to you yes so have you made a change already i did yes no i could change the whole ticket thing forever now please when she leaves i said don’t everybody taking it is a simple
Little example just to show how quick our thought process can change and when you change a thought process you change the behavior for every belief or thought process we act on we get a result so where did i do i learned that in the flu you programmed yourself that if i tickle myself i’m not ticklish but if you tickle even me i’m gonna be ticklish i just tickled
You and you weren’t ticklish and i could go further where you could never be ticklish so somebody says to you gary are you ticklish if i choose to be so the thing is there’s so many things and behaviors that we exhibit in our lives that can be changed because of how we think the key is is learning how to change your thinking and do it quickly and when you learn to
Do the changing of your thought process you can use it for everything because everything is a thought process what would how we change in terms of his things the first thing i would she teach him how to do is change his story you should change your story you change the result so i could teach him to change that thought process where he’s not so obsessed if you
Will about that thinking information you’re talking about him like he’s not here for me my personal issue is that intellectually right you don’t know that what i’m thinking is not gonna hurt me i’m not gonna die i’m not gonna get sick let me go wash my hands i’m fine i can’t override that right let me ask you this do you enjoy this control in your life well the
Answer would be no all right so what i would do is i would teach you how to get that control back where external stimuli and other things like this don’t control you because so much about this is your emotions i show people how to lead their feelings and not be a slave to them the issue that i have is more is if you know you can probably your phobia there is a big
Difference and it’s like i can’t i have a skipping record so even if the thought is i just keep seeing the number 7 or i have to top that it’s not it’s not always fear so ocd i don’t know that you can clear a cure but a fear of something i believe that is just a thought and we can all kind of overcome those thoughts with the kind of skill that you have stick around
More of howie mandel after the break you
Transcribed from video
Phobia Cure in an Hour?! By The Doctors