Rapid relief from fear of vomiting in 1-5 sessions.
Emetophobia Treatment in Worcester, MA
Virtual Emetophobia Therapy Serving Worcester & Central Massachusetts
Using Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
Living with emetophobia has been systematically shrinking your life. You avoid restaurants on Shrewsbury Street because too many variables feel risky. You turned down the promotion at UMass Medical School or Saint Vincent Hospital because healthcare settings terrify you: what if a patient gets sick? You skip social gatherings at Mechanics Hall or events at the DCU Center because crowds mean unpredictable exposure. You’re organizing your entire life around a phobia that should have resolved years ago.
If you’re a parent, you’re watching your teenager at Doherty High, Saint Peter-Marian, or Worcester Academy struggle with the same fear. They won't eat lunch in the cafeteria. They’re refusing the class trip. They’re limiting college applications based on distance from home because life in a dorm sounds terrible to them.
Emetophobia typically resolves in 1-5 sessions with Accelerated Resolution Therapy. You don’t need months of weekly appointments or years of traditional talk therapy. You need treatment that targets the traumatic root of the phobia directly, and you can access it from home via secure telehealth.
Why Traditional Exposure Therapy Fails Many People Living With Emetophobia
Many Massachusetts therapists offer evidence-based CBT with exposure therapy. The research supports it: when people complete exposure treatment, it works. But completion rates for emetophobia are terrible.
Over half of people refuse exposure therapy entirely. The thought of watching vomiting videos, deliberately imagining worst-case scenarios, or progressively exposing yourself to vomit-related content feels unbearable. You’ve spent decades desperately trying NOT to think about vomiting. Intentionally triggering that response goes against every defense you’ve built.
You’ve also experienced accidental exposure countless times: Every stomach bug season in Worcester, every time someone at your UMass office or Saint Vincent department mentions feeling “off”, and every drunk person at a WooSox game.
The exposure model assumes your brain needs to learn the feared situation is safe through repeated contact. But you already know vomiting won’t kill you. Yet, intellectual knowledge doesn’t override the nervous system response.
Here’s what we’ll do together.
How Accelerated Resolution Therapy Works Differently for Emetophobia
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) treats emetophobia as what it usually is: a result of a traumatic experience, not a rational fear that just needs to be corrected.
Many people with emetophobia can identify a specific triggering event, often from childhood; ie, you got sick at school in front of everyone or you had a medical procedure that made you violently ill. There’s an origin point where your brain learned “vomiting = danger.”
The important thing to say here is that ART works even when you can’t pinpoint a specific memory. Sometimes the fear feels like it’s always been there, or the connection isn’t obvious until we’re actually in the session. The brain often makes connections we’re not consciously aware of: ART works with those unconscious links, not just the memories you can articulate.
ART uses bilateral eye movements while you recall that triggering image or memory. Then, instead of forcing you to sit with the distress until it lessens, you actively change the image itself. The brain stores the memory differently; you keep the factual knowledge of what happened, but the visceral fear response evaporates completely.
This means you can think about the original event, or about vomiting in general, without your nervous system activating. The trigger becomes completely neutral. Not “manageable with coping skills” — just a matter of fact.
Treatment typically takes 1-5 sessions. The original traumatic memory usually resolves in one session. Additional sessions can address related triggers: specific foods, specific situations, pregnancy fears, caring for sick children, etc.
Stop Just Surviving and Start Living
Through our work together, you’ll stop surviving and start living. Not managing fear, not coping with triggers, not white-knuckling through each day. Actually living with spontaneity, joy, and the freedom to choose your life instead of emetophobia choosing it for you.
What changes after our work together…
You feel comfortable working in Worcester’s healthcare sector. Apply for positions at UMass Medical School, UMass Memorial, Saint Vincent Hospital, Reliant Medical Group. Build the healthcare career Worcester's economy centers around. Show up to work without constant anxiety about patients or coworkers getting sick.
Food becomes normal. Try restaurants on Shrewsbury Street, accept dinner invitations without interrogating hosts about food preparation, order something new at restaurants around College Hill, and stop bringing the same safe lunch to work every single day.
Your career can expand beyond Worcester. Take the Boston job without panic about the commute, accept the promotion that requires occasional travel, and interview for positions across Central Mass without limiting choices based on proximity to home.
College becomes manageable. If you’re a Clark, Holy Cross, or WPI student: eat in the dining hall without calculating which foods are safe. Live in the dorms. Go to parties. Participate in the full college experience instead of commuting from your parents’ house to avoid campus life.
Social life opens up. Go to WooSox games at Polar Park, attend concerts at the DCU Center or the Palladium, and try breweries around Worcester. Say yes to work gatherings and networking events that you used to avoid.
Parenting becomes less anxiety-filled. Volunteer in your kids’ classrooms and handle calls from the school nurse without panic. If you’re not a parent, you’ll be able to make decisions about having children based on whether you want them, not whether you can tolerate morning sickness.
Get in touch
Serving Worcester and All of Massachusetts
I’m independently licensed in Massachusetts and provide emetophobia treatment entirely via secure telehealth. You don’t need to sit in a waiting room worrying about other patients’ health.
Sessions are 60-90 minutes, typically 1-5 sessions total. Most people see significant change in the first session. This is not long-term weekly therapy requiring months of appointments.
Investment: $500 per 90-minute session. For emetophobia treatment averaging 3-4 sessions, total investment is typically $1,500-$2,000.
My practice operates entirely private-pay (no insurance). This allows for intensive 90-minute sessions focused on rapid resolution rather than insurance-limited 50-minute appointments stretched across months. I provide Superbills for potential out-of-network reimbursement, and services qualify for HSA/FSA.
I provide emetophobia treatment via telehealth to clients throughout Worcester and all of Central Massachusetts:
Worcester & Immediate Area: Main South, Elm Park, College Hill, Tatnuck, West Side, Vernon Hill, Shrewsbury Street, Green Island, Quinsigamond Village, Indian Lake, Burncoat, Great Brook Valley
Worcester Suburbs: Shrewsbury, Auburn, Millbury, Leicester, Paxton, Holden, West Boylston, Boylston, Princeton
Central Massachusetts: Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner, Athol, Orange, Clinton, Lancaster, Sterling, Berlin, Bolton, Hudson, Marlborough, Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, Grafton, Sutton, Oxford, Webster, Dudley, Charlton, Sturbridge, Southbridge, Spencer, Ware, Palmer, Brimfield
About Allyson Clemmons, LICSW
Real healing happens in the nervous system, not just in conversation.
After 15 years in traditional talk therapy, I now specialize in helping people who have tried multiple approaches but aren’t finding lasting change. Using ART’s bilateral eye movements (similar to what happens naturally during REM sleep) we’ll work directly with how traumatic memories are stored in your brain. Most clients experience relief from emetophobia in 1-5 sessions instead of months or years.
If you’ve hit a wall with other approaches and want freedom from symptoms (not just management), you’re exactly who I work with.
Licensed in Massachusetts: LICSW #126480
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heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions
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heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions —