Commitment phobia is the fear and avoidance of having to commit to anything, relationships in particular.

You may be wondering what kind of treatment is available for commitment phobia. First the person has to want the help and be willing to work with a therapist.

The therapist or counsellor needs to determine whether or not the person truly is a commitment phobic or if there is some other personality disorder present. If it is determined that the person truly has a commitment phobia, then the therapist and her client need to work on uncovering what triggered the problem.

However, what is certain is that the person has a problem and that problem is feeling bad in some way, whether the feeling is labelled "commitment phobia" or not! The good news is that it is much easier to work directly with changing a feeling than it is to go the old fashioned Freudian style of uncovering childhood traumas or skeletons in the cupboard.

Understanding the roots of a life limiting behaviour does not necessarily alter it. Changing the way you feel, on the other hand, always alters behaviour. Once we have established that we can work directly with feelings, the spotlight shifts from the so-called commitment phobia itself to a completely different area: does the person with the behaviour accept that he or she actually has a problem?

This is much trickier, especially as there are always two of you in a relationship. The "commitment phobic" can always say - and truly believe - that he is not the one with the problem, but that there is some flaw in you that causes him to stray or run away altogether. And if you are the one on the receiving end of that, your self confidence can take some serious blows.

It is for these reasons that I included both self esteem rebuilding strategies and a powerful process to easily change feelings in my program to mend a broken heart: "How To Trust Love Again When Your Heart's Been Broken."

My advice about commitment phobia then becomes much simpler. First, stop labelling it. The very term "commitment phobia" or "commitment phobic" sounds like a disease, and no one likes to be labelled "diseased." It's behaviour that one of you at least finds difficult. If the person with the behaviour does not have a problem with it, then actually they are not going to change it. We never change behaviours that feel more comfortable than the alternatives.

Secondly, understand that to change behaviour, you first need to change how you feel - not about each other, but inside. It's not difficult when you realise one thing: if you're commitment phobic, then ironically, you are committed to the behaviour of phobia!

It sounds like a joke but it isn't. It is your lifeline. Somewhere you know what it feels like to be committed to something, even if that commitment is not conscious and is not producing the outcome you desire. Harness the feeling and you have the key to change.