Phobias

Phobia is an irrational, intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things or persons. Phobia comes from a Greek word “phobos” meaning fear. The person suffering from phobia will have intense and undesirable need to avoid the feared object. If the fear goes beyond ones control and affects the daily activities, it can be diagnosed as one of the anxiety disorders.

Phobias can be broadly be classified into 2 categories:

1.Social Phobia: is a fear of going out in social situations. A person with this disorder will be afraid of getting embarrassed or humiliated.

2.Specific Phobia: is a fear caused by a specific object or situation.

The symptoms of phobias include:
·Feeling of panic, dread, horror, or terror.
·Recognition that the fear goes beyond normal boundaries and the actual threat of danger.
·Reactions that is automatic and uncontrollable, practically taking over the person’s thoughts.
·Extreme measures taken to avoid the feared object or situation.

Some physical symptoms of phobia are:

·Trembling
·Excessive sweating
·Nausea
·Dizziness
·Hyperventilation
·Chest pain
·Freezing

Another common symptom experienced by people with phobias is anticipatory anxiety. Anticipatory anxiety can cause people to avoid situations in which they might have a panic attack or to avoid the objects that trigger a response of intense fear and anxiety. A phobic person will overestimate the danger they are in and underestimate their ability to cope. In this way they may lose all sense of perspective. They expect disaster to be the only outcome. This is called catastrophising.

Some mental processes involved in phobia are:
·Catastrophising
·Ignoring the positive
·Over generalization
·Thinking in all or none terms
·Exaggerating


Risk factors:
Phobias affect people of all ages, from all walks of life, and in every part of the country. Most individuals with agoraphobia have a history of panic disorder. There is also some evidence that agoraphobia may run in families. Also, a child who suffers separation anxiety (anxiety for being away from home and immediate family) may be predisposed to developing agoraphobia.
There appears to be a link between alcoholism and social phobia. The stress associated with social phobia is thought to create an increased risk for alcohol abuse (e.g., drinking to "calm the nerves").

Causes:
Much is still unknown about phobia causes. However, there may be a strong correlation between your phobias and the phobias of your parents. Children may learn phobias by observing a family member's phobic reaction to an object or a situation. An example of a common learned phobia may be the fear of snakes. Brain chemicals, genetics and traumatic experiences also appear to influence the development of phobias. Research suggests the tendency to develop phobias may be a complex interaction between heredity and environment. Some hypersensitive people have unique chemical reactions in the brain that cause them to respond much more strongly to stress. A specific stressful event usually triggers the development of a specific phobia or agoraphobia. For example, someone predisposed to develop phobias who experiences severe turbulence during a flight might go on to develop a phobia about flying.

Treatment:
Treatment of phobias involves cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), medication, and counseling.
Response prevention is a very effective behavior therapy. In this treatment, the patient (1) is exposed to a situation that causes anxiety or panic and then (2) learns to "ride out" the distress until the anxiety or attack passes. The duration of exposure gradually increases with each session. This treatment works best if the patient is not taking tranquilizers because tranquilizers can prevent the experience of anxiety.

Progressive desensitization is not as effective as exposure and response prevention, but is used in people with specific phobias who have great difficulty facing the object or situation that causes their fear. This treatment involves learning relaxation and visualization techniques. The patient is exposed to the source of fear gradually. For instance, a person with fear of heights looks down from a second-story window of a skyscraper. Once the person begins to experience anxiety, they are removed from the situation. They then learn to visualize being in the situation without experiencing anxiety. Once they are able to look out that window without experiencing anxiety, they move up to the third-story window, and so on.
If the person is suffering from Social phobia, then he can be given social skills training where, the skills that the person is lacking is identified and the training is given in those areas.

List of phobia:

Fear of market places: Agoraphobia
Fear of animals: Zoophobia
Fear of beards: Pogonophobia
Fear of blood: Hematophobia
Fear of Spiders: Arachnophobia
Fear of flying: Aerophobia
Fear of cats: Ailurophobia
Fear of clouds: Nephophobia
Fear of colors: Chromatophobia
Fear of dark/night: Nyctophobia
Fear of death/dying: Thanatophobia
Fear of love: Philophobia
Fear of marriage: Gamophobia
Fear of water: Hydrophobia
Fear of heights: Acrophobia

Did you know???

ØTennis star Andre Agassi is arachnophobic, or has a fear of spiders.
ØAdolf Hitler was claustrophobic, or fear of closed places.
ØAuthor Anne Rice has stated that she is afraid of the dark, or is nyctophobic.
ØNapoleon Bonaparte, who was the emperor of France, suffered from ailurophobia, a fear of cats.
ØAmerican Singer/actress/director Barbara Streisand's social phobia prevented her from singing in public for twenty seven years.
ØMahatma Gandhi in his childhood suffered from fear of ghosts, or from phasmophobia.