Felix Economakis is a chartered psychologist, clinical hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner. He has made numerous appearances on both TV and radio, including putting his techniques to the test on BBC 3’s ‘The Panic Room’ and the most recent series of ‘Freaky Eaters’. He specialises in combining therapies to produce rapid and powerful change for a range of conditions including self-confidence, depression, anxiety, traumas, relationship issues, and is considered to be one of the country’s leading phobia practitioners.
What interested you in psychology?
My mum had several popular psychology books lying around the house, and since we didn’t have internet or video games back then, I started reading those books from about age 12 onwards and got hooked. These books often described and my experiences and behaviours or those of family members around me and helped me understand them. It was as if there was a wise person around guiding me or telling me what was going on. I kept reading personal development books from that time. At the age of 27 I finally sought to combine something I was interested about with a career and decided to train as a psychologist.
How did you first get into TV work?
I’m on the psychological society media database (for psychologists who don’t mind journalists asking them for comments), and that was where the producers of my first TV work the Panic Room found me. With my second TV work (Freaky Eaters), a talent scout saw a workshop of mine in a brochure and asked me if I would be interested in an audition for the new series of Freaky Eaters. I auditioned again and I got the part.
You specialise in neurolinguistic programming and have a book coming out soon based on these NLP techniques. What does NLP involve?
NLP was put together by two men who researched the methods of three master therapists in their fields. The researchers then tried to find the ‘active ingredients’ underlying all the change work they witnessed and sought to reduce it to simple principles that they could be replicated. In short they wanted to see if they could copy the principles of excellence and best practice from leaders in the field and then teach others the same techniques to achieve the same high levels of performance. In therapy terms NLP is very creative and solution-focused and seeks to cut straight to the techniques for change without any diversions into speculation or analysis. It works on the process or underlying mechanisms of behaviour rather than on the content itself.
Can you tell us a little bit about Virtual Resolutions Therapy? It’s something you have developed yourself isn’t it?
VRT is my own adaptation of a technique from NLP but with a couple of key creative additions drawn from other fields I have studied. This format allows me to achieve multiple therapeutic goals: understanding, acknowledgement, validation, cognitive challenging, processing of suppressed emotions, empathy for other perspectives, and leading and expanding the direction of thought to more useful perspectives. Recently I worked with one couple who had been to a Relate counsellor for over 10 sessions without a resolution for some of their conflicts. When I led them through the VRT format, they processed each of their main threads of conflict in just a few minutes each. They couldn’t believe the difference in therapies.
You’ve helped many people suffering with severe phobias. On BBC 3′s ‘The Panic Room’ in particular you dealt with some extreme cases. Do you think phobias are a modern-day malady? I ask because I can’t imagine a caveman having a fear of spiders or wide open spaces.
Yes I believe it is a modern day malady. The less exposure we have to the natural world the more ignorant we are of it. Ignorance and fear go together and we imagine all sorts of dangers associated with house spiders from the scary things we have seen on TV with tarantulas and truly dangerous spiders. In agrarian countries like Cambodia you see young children routinely handling spiders as big as my hand, so cavemen would have been the same. Asides from that, we still have an outdated ‘stone age’ defence response (releasing adrenalin in the face of danger) that doesn’t help us deal with modern age ‘threats’ such as job interviews, public speaking, traffic jams, deadlines etc. Adrenalin in these situations freaks us out and we start making inaccurate attributions about ourselves (e.g. we have ‘faulty wiring’ or ‘chemical imbalances’).
Why do you think more of us suffering from anxiety and depression?
There are many contributors to why anxiety and depression are on the rise. Part of this was for the reason mentioned previously, in that our evolutionary coping response are out of sync with the kinds of demands facing us now and we don’t understand them and panic when we experience them. A second reason has been the attempt to medicate our way out of our problems rather than resolve them at source. A third reason has been the rapid rate of technological change, meaning everything is faster, more rushed and stressful. We don’t have time to think, we are just fire fighting demands on several fronts. Things are changing so quickly we feel confused and uncertain because we don’t know how to handle all the new changes and options for lifestyles available to us. In addition we are more isolated due to the breakdown of traditional communities. Are brains are social brains and respond best to living in a community rather than relying on social networking media.
Have you ever suffered from a phobia?
Not a true phobia. I’ve had aversions to things but would face them when I had to. A phobia on the other hand is an uncontrollable state of panic with the only option being to avoid or flee. I don’t even have those aversions any more.
You’ve spoken a great deal about how we can find happiness in our lives. What is happiness for you personally?
Happiness for me needs a combination of several things to happen.
Firstly, to set yourself free of the patterns, habits, traumas demons or skeletons haunting you from the past. It’s hard to focus on anything else if you are preoccupied with anxiety or traumatised. Once you do, your attention is freed up to focus on more constructive and beneficial pursuits.
Secondly, to find a sense of completeness from within rather than trying to find this externally. In one sense we are all looking to feel loved and we look for this love by mindlessly pursuing unsuitable relationships, drugs, status, consumer goods. And then we become slaves to these things. Once you understand and accept yourself you have found self-love which feels completely different. You feel you are living rather than existing. Once you have a greater connection within yourself, you also develop a greater connection to others and the world around you by extension.
Thirdly, to become the measure of your own worth rather than comparing oneself to the standards society blindly promotes. This frees you up from needing to conform to someone else’s different expectations and allows you to create your own agenda and path for yourself. A happy person is one who is able to pursue and express themselves, their own unique blend of creativity and aptitudes in whatever form that takes, free from interference until they find the right match for themselves in their environment.
