Emetophobia UK - David Kaneria

19/08/2026

You can not just talk yourself out of your emetophobia. Telling yourself it is not going to be that bad or that you can cope is just a story. You have most likely tried telling yourself these types of thoughts, but it made little difference. A story that only works if your actions match up with that story. You need to take real action to overcome your fears. Act in line with the story, or better yet, act on your values and the person and life you really want in the long term. Only then do things start to change. Start acting differently, and soon enough your fear will reduce.

13/08/2026

I believe every therapist should practice what they preach. So here is me facing my own fear, doing some exposure therapy to sing in public. The aim of exposure therapy is to help you build up your own confidence, handle anxiety differently and to test if your fears actually come true. In most cases your anxiety just lies to you. You are safer than you think you are, even in scary situations.

The same approach does work for emetophobia. The more you face what scares you, the less it scares you.

12/08/2026

The point of exposure therapy is not to scare you or force you to endure difficult situations ‘just because’. It is designed to help you change how you perceive danger.

For it to work you need to learn something from it. These four lessons are the difference between making exposure an effective therapy tool or it ‘not working’.

1) You need to learn something about the true likelihood of your fears occurring.
2) You need to learn something about your safety behaviours and if they are needed or not.
3) You need to learn something about your feelings of anxiety and nausea and if using them as a guide is accurate or not
4) You need to learn something about how to get through, cope, tolerate or accept anxious feelings or feelings of nausea.

11/08/2026

Emetophobia is an extreme fear of vomiting which can cause you to spend excessive time trying to prevent becoming sick. It can be a truly disabling condition that effects every area of your life. The risk of vomiting feels very real and unescapable. This fear normally come with a constant feeling of nausea.

Common symptoms include:
• Anxiety.
• Fear.
• Nausea.
• Panic attacks.
• Being on edge.

You may try and cope by:
• Avoiding triggers.
• Excessively worrying.
• Overplanning.
• Body scanning for signs of illness.
• Excessively cleaning or disinfecting.
• Reassurance seeking.
• Avoiding certain foods, cooking methods or places.

10/08/2026

Psychological flexibility is key to overcoming anxiety. Psychological flexibility is the ability to stay present in any given moment, make space from your anxious thoughts and feelings and choose how to act based on your values and what will give you the best life in the long run, rather than just trying to escape your anxiety in the here and now. Next time you feel anxious, ask yourself, 'Instead of acting on this feeling, what are my values telling me to do right now?'.

07/08/2026

What do you have to do to overcome emetophobia?

First thing you have to do is drop your safety behaviours. These are any actions you are doing excessively to prevent your fears. The next thing is to build your confidence and test out how accurate that voice in your head is when it tells you to avoid things. The more you challenge your fear, the less to fear it.

04/08/2026

Why does doubt and anxiety often go hand in hand?

It often comes down to a certain behaviour that anxious people learn to use to manage their anxiety. This is the act of reassurance seeking. This often feels helpful in the short term as getting the answer we want, makes us we feel more reassured. But over time it becomes less effective and starts to introduce doubt into our experience of anxiety. This makes anxiety worse. Which prompts more reassurance and makes the problem worse.

31/07/2026

If you experience panic attacks as a part of your emetophobia, I have written a small free guide on what panic disorder and agoraphobia is, what causes panic attacks and how to overcome them.
Hope you find it helpful

https://emetophobia.uk/self-help

30/07/2026

If you are looking for some emetophobia exposure materials to get started on your recovery, have a look at my guided step by step self-help page: https://emetophobia.uk/emetophobia-avoiding-cues

If you want them all on one page or have a therapist to go through them with, you can use this link: It has words, cartoons, images, sounds and videos all graded so you can start slow and build up your confidence.
https://emetophobia.uk/exposure-materials

In-session ERP Materials for Emetophobia - including words, images, sounds and videos.

17/07/2026

Due to high demand, my 1:1 CBT therapy practice is now fully booked, and I'm unable to take on any new clients at the moment.

If you'd still like to work with me, I've now opened a confidential waitlist. As soon as a therapy space becomes available, I'll contact people on the waitlist in order of enquiry.

In the meantime, my website has lots of free resources https://emetophobia.uk/self-help