NEEDHAM, Mass. -- Anyone who has suffered from a fear of flying, heights or public speaking knows the paralyzing effect phobias can have. One local woman says she can cure phobias -- within one hour.

JUDITH SWACK Learn More About Dr. Swack Call Dr. Swack At (781) 444-6940

NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner reported that Dr. Judith Swack, of Needham, specializes in alternative mind-body-spirit therapy.

"So if, for example, people have a phobic reaction, they are having a body-level reaction," Swack said. "It's a chemical, neurological reaction that you can't control consciously."

Swack calls her methodology "healing from the body level up" or HBLU for short. She was recently featured on national television curing a Los Angeles woman's 25-year-old fear of the dark.

Waltham pharmacist Steve Bernardi is now a believer. Last fall, he and his staff, including his wife and son, were held up at gunpoint in an OxyContin robbery.

"I was on the phone, and I looked up, and I saw someone with a mask and a gun," Bernardi said. "They said, 'Get down on the floor and give us all your OxyContin."

Bernardi said the experience so traumatized him he thought about closing the family business, until he worked with Swack and what he calls her "unconventional" methods.

"She somehow manages -- through a very strange set of exercises -- manages to touch an area in your emotions and release whatever is going on," Bernardi said.

Swack recently worked with Stephanie Dzioba, 21, an assistant traffic reporter at KISS 108, who's deathly afraid of elevators and has been since she was 8.

"I'm terrified, like I feel myself being completely trapped inside of there with no way to get out," Dzioba said.

While playing a game of hide-and-seek as a child, she got stuck in a locker and couldn't get out. Eventually, she passed out. She relived the trauma just standing outside an elevator.

"My knees are shaking profoundly. It's more physical, like I will be sick if I go inside the elevator," she said.

During the therapy session, Swack took Dzioba through a series of exercises, including muscle testing, stimulating nerve endings, chanting and humming to clear her mind and body simultaneously of unprocessed emotions associated with her traumatic childhood experience.

Sixty minutes later, Dzioba once again stood outside the elevator, saying she is still somewhat apprehensive.

"I can still feel a little bit of tension, but I'm not afraid of being stuck," she said.

For the next several minutes, Dzioba took a number of rides up and down until finally going it solo.

"I feel a lot better, more relaxed, comforted," she said. "Surprisingly, honestly, I doubted it would work."

Bernardi said he had his doubts, too, but not anymore.

"It's not for everybody," he said. "But it's a hell of a lot better, I think, than writing prescriptions for antidepressants, and that's the business I'm in, filling these prescriptions, but I always believe that there's a better way."

A single session costs $195. Swack said it can also work for physical conditions, such as chronic pain, allergies, asthma and digestive disorders.