I’ve had an email from someone who has a problem with public speaking. Over the years she’s become more and more terrified until she’s reached the point where she just can’t do it any more. Normally I would suggest NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) or hypnosis or self-hypnosis. But this woman has tried those things and just about everything else that’s going.
A standard NLP method is to visualize a scene in which you succeed in doing what you’re afraid of. The problem with that approach is that when you’re really terrified of something it can completely hijack your visualization. In other words, you can’t even imagine yourself succeeding. Each time you try you only ever see yourself failing. As a result, your fear increases.