A phobia is the most extreme type of
fear, where it actually causes them to go to great lengths to avoid being
exposed to the fear or perceived danger, even if there’s no actual risk or
danger, and people often feel powerless against it. Phobias are considered the
most common psychiatric disorder, affecting almost 10% of the population. Phobias
are extreme, often unreasonable, and irrational fears of something, which could literally
be anything, like pyrophobia—fear of fire, alektorophobia—fear of chickens, triskaidekaphobia—fear
of the number 13, phobophobia—fear of developing phobias, or even
pinaciphobia—fear of lists.
Unreasonable or irrational fears get
in the way of daily routines, work, and relationships because patients with
phobias might try to do whatever they can to avoid the anxiety and terrifying feelings
associated with the phobia. For example, most people don’t necessarily enjoy
the company of spiders. Still, they also don’t let it affect their social or daily
life, like—even though I know there are spiders in the woods, I wouldn’t avoid camping trips on account of the spiders. Even if they love camping, somebody
with arachnophobia—a fear of spiders—might refuse to go because they know
there’s a possibility of seeing a spider in close quarters; the fear clearly interferes with their social life and relationship with their relationship friends, meaning it’s a phobia.
An irrational fear of an object or
situation like this is called a specific phobia. The diagnostic and statistical
manual for mental disorders, edition five, splits these specific phobias into
five categories—fear of animals, like arachnophobia or alektorophobia, fear of
the natural environment, like darkness or nyctophobia, fear of blood and
needles—hemophobia, situational fears like fear of flying—aviophobia, and then
“other” fears, like fear of clowns—coulrophobia. These specific phobias are one
of three main types of phobias. The other two types are agoraphobia and social
phobia. Agoraphobia means fear of public places but has to do with being
fearful in a public space where it feels like it might be hard to escape
quickly and return to a place perceived as “safe” like the person’s home.
Therefore, people with agoraphobia
tend not to venture out very often. Some commonly feared areas might be places
like crowded shopping malls, or theaters, where it might be difficult to escape
quickly. Social phobias, on the other hand, are overwhelming and persistent
fears of social situations and interactions. People with social phobias are
fearful of being embarrassed or judged by others. Being embarrassed or feeling
“awkward” in social interaction from time to time is totally normal, but
people with social phobias often feel anxiety for weeks leading up to events
before they happen, and are afraid of doing common things in front of others. For
example, someone with a social phobia might be afraid to eat in front of
someone else. For people with phobias—seeing, being exposed to, or even
thinking about the phobia causes severe anxiety that’s often not proportionate
to the real threat.
They’ll catastrophize and jump to
the worst-case scenario and think that it’s more likely to happen than it
actually is—these thoughts can lead to physical symptoms like excessive sweating,
trembling, and an increased heart rate. That being said, it’s important to
reiterate the difference between an everyday fear and a phobia. Feeling queasy
while you’re climbing a ladder would be an everyday fear, avoiding your
favorite frozen yogurt place because it’s on the second floor of a building
would be a phobia. Feeling weirded out around your best friend’s pet snake is
an everyday fear, avoiding your friend’s house entirely because they have a
snake would be a phobia. Unless it’s not in a terrarium and slithering around
the house—then I guess it would be an everyday fear.
Basically, it comes down to the idea
of what would be an appropriate or reasonable response versus a
disproportionate or exaggerated response. But what causes a phobia? Well, we
don’t really know, but we do know you’re more likely to develop one if you have
a family member with a phobia. Sometimes though, phobias might be caused by
specific traumatic events, like being confronted by an aggressive raccoon. Now
tailoring treatment for the specific individual’s fear is super important in
effective therapy, because different patients might respond differently
depending on the therapy, especially if other conditions are involved liked
depression and drug abuse. Psychotherapy, particularly cognitive behavior
therapy, can be super beneficial for patients. Cognitive behavior therapy
teaches patients to be mindful that their fear is irrational and the likelihood
of their worst fears coming true like being attacked by a pack of angry raccoons
and getting rabies and dying an unpleasant and untimely death, is actually very
low.
Also, systematic desensitization
might be used, where a person is gradually and systematically exposed to the
feared objects. Patients first learn to identify the anxiety, then they learn
coping techniques, and last they use their learned coping techniques to
overcome situations. The vast majority of patients can be treated using these
tailored methods.
Thank You
Good information
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