After today's episode where everyone swaps Pokemon, she can now touch Pikachu.
... Okay, so I think I solved Lillie's Pokemon problem: force her to spend a day with a Pokemon. Because that's all she apparently needs to get over her phobia of a certain Pokemon.
Yeah, I don't quite agree with this choice. For one thing it makes Lillie's relationship with Snowy feel less significant. Not because she's can now touch other Pokemon, but rather the way they did it. With Snowy, it was because they shared a life harrowing event, Snowy falling off a cliff and Lillie jumping after it to save it. It makes sense both would become close after that, seeing how much they care for one another in the face of danger. Meanwhile in this episode, all Lillie did was use Pikachu in battle against her butler's Oricorio and after winning was able to hug it. That... seems a bit weak. Like, if you want to show she's slowly opening back up to Pokemon, you can have her be able to pet Pikachu though then have Pikachu go for a hug and she freezes, showing she fully can't touch a Pokemon other than Snowy who she shares a close relation with.
Also it makes her having the phobia seem pointless if she can get over it that quickly. This phobia of Pokemon should come with major consequences, especially for a character who often gets involved in Pokemon based adventures. While they wouldn't do this, there could have been something like during a critical moment in the future a Pokemon is hurt/captured and Lillie is the only one that can heal/free it. However, due to her phobia, she can't just bring herself to help which results the Pokemon to get seriously hurt or unable to escape (which results the Pokemon spending a long time recovering or having to plan a more difficult rescue mission). However, this phobia is more being treated like a character quirk than anything serious, thus furthering making her relationship with Snowy feel less significant.
And it's not like Pokemon didn't have characters with Pokemon phobia before. In
EP090 "Stage Fight!", CotD (Character of the Day) Kay was initially afraid of getting shocked by her Raichu, causing it unable to perform in her family's Pokemon show cause it was afraid of hurting her. In the
7th movie, Destiny Deoxys, CotD Tory was afraid of Pokemon after being almost stampeded by a group of Sealeo & Walrein. While nothing major came out of it, it did result in Ash losing a tag battle in a stadium. Both Kay and Tory got over their phobia, but there is also a character who didn't. In
EP206 "Th Joy of Water Pokemon", there's a Nurse Joy who's afraid of Water-type Pokemon (working in a Pokemon Center that specializes in Water Pokemon care; this also greatly angered Misty who was initially excited to visiting this Pokemon Center). She has to use a special suit in order to "touch" them (sound familiar?). Well at the climax of the episode a Gyarados got hurt and was going on a rampage, Joy's suit being destroyed during it. Despite this, she still approached the Gyarados and comforted it until Chansey was able to get a brace on it. Then afterwards she fainted and at the end of the episode still said she's afraid of Water-type Pokemon but she's not going to let that prevent her from doing her job (and Misty starts respecting her for that). All these cases of Pokemon phobia came with a consequence of sorts and in one case a character didn't recover from their phobia. It made their phobia feel to have a bit more impact, them getting over it or dealing with it feeling like it was a accomplishment for that character.
Now that we know Lillie just needs to spend a day with a Pokemon to get over her phobia of it, kind of lessens any significant development they could have done with her (especially if they ever start following the game's storyline. Imagine if the reason Lillie keeps Nebby in the bag not only because she's hiding it but also she can't bring herself to touch Nebby, thus why it keeps escaping? That would have been an interesting place to take things).