What Is A Phobia

What Is A Phobia?

A phobia (from the Greek: phóbos, meaning “fear” or “morbid fear”) is an irrational, intense, excessive and persistent fear of certain situations, objects, or activities. In many cases, phobia involves a fear of harm or a sense of endangerment. For example, those suffering from acrophobia fear falling from high places.

Even though phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders, they are not generally diagnosed. A diagnose is usually made only if phobias are frequently encountered and very distressing to the patient to the extent that the patient is not able to perform his/her daily life normally.

Generally phobias are caused by an event recorded by the brain and labeled as deadly or dangerous; thus whenever a similar situation is approached again the body reacts as if the same dangerous event were happening again. In reality most phobias are not rational, in the sense that the perceived dangers are actually not threatening the survival in any way.

Some phobias are generated as a result of observing other people’s reaction. The information is then taken in by the brain and the fear is generated to mimic other people’s reaction.

Symptoms of Phobias
Phobic symptoms can occur as result of exposure to the feared object or situation. In extreme cases simply thinking about the feared object can lead to a phobic response. Common symptoms associated with phobias are:

• Terror: A persistent and overwhelming fear of the object or situation.
• Physical Symptoms: Dizziness, shaking, palpitations.
• Obsessive Thoughts: Difficulty thinking about anything other than the fear.
• Desire to Flee: An intense instinct to leave the situation.
• Anticipatory Anxiety: Persistent worrying about upcoming events that involve the phobic object or situation.

What Causes Phobia?
Researchers are uncertain exactly what causes phobias. However, it is commonly believed that certain factors may increase the likelihood that a phobia will develop. These factors include:

• Genetics: Research has shown that certain phobias may run in families. For example, twins who are raised separately, in different locations, may develop the same phobias. However, many people with phobias have no relatives with the condition.
• Cultural Factors: Some phobias occur only in certain cultural groups. An example is taijin kyofusho, a social phobia that appears almost exclusively in Japan. This is a fear of offending or harming others in social situations. It is markedly different from a traditional social phobia, in which the sufferer is afraid of being personally embarrassed on humiliated. It is therefore possible that culture plays some role in phobia development.
• Life Experience: Many phobias are based in real-life events that may or may not be consciously remembered. A phobia of dogs, for example, may stem from being attacked as a small child. A social phobia may develop from teenage awkwardness or childhood bullying.

The Anatomical Side of Phobias

Some researchers believe that phobias and other anxiety disorders are caused by some type of dysfunction in a small structure in the brain called the amygdala and related brain areas. The amygdala is an area of the brain located behind the pituitary gland in the limbic system. It is believed to be a central site in the brain that controls fear responses.

The amygdala secretes hormones that control fear and aggression. When the fear or aggression response is initiated, the amygdala releases hormones into the body to put the human body into an “alert” state, in which they are ready to move, run, fight, etc. This defensive “alert” state and response is generally referred to in psychology as the fight-or-flight response.

Types of Phobias
Psychologists and psychiatrists classify most phobias into three categories and, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), such phobias are considered to be sub-types of anxiety disorder. The three categories are:

• Social phobia – fears involving other people or social situations such as performance anxiety or fears of embarrassment by scrutiny of others, such as eating in public. Overcoming social phobia is often very difficult without the help of therapy or support groups. Social phobia may be further subdivided into
  • generalized social phobia (also known as social anxiety disorder or simply social anxiety) and
  • specific social phobia, in which anxiety is triggered only in specific situations. The symptoms may extend to psychosomatic manifestation of physical problems. For example, sufferers of paruresis find it difficult or impossible to urinate in reduced levels of privacy. This goes far beyond mere preference: when the condition triggers, the person physically cannot empty their bladder.
• Specific phobias – fear of a single specific panic trigger such as spiders, snakes, dogs, water, heights, flying, catching a specific illness, etc. Many people have these fears but to a lesser degree than those who suffer from specific phobias. People with the phobias specifically avoid the entity they fear.
• Agoraphobia - a generalized fear of leaving home or a small familiar ‘safe’ area, and of possible panic attacks that might follow. May also be caused by various specific phobias such as fear of open spaces, social embarrassment (social agoraphobia), fear of contamination (fear of germs, possibly complicated by obsessive-compulsive disorder) or PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) related to a trauma that occurred out of doors.

Phobias vary in severity among individuals. Some individuals can simply avoid the subject of their fear and suffer relatively mild anxiety over that fear. Others suffer full-fledged panic attacks with all the associated disabling symptoms. Most individuals understand that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but they are powerless to override their initial panic reaction.

Phobia Treatments

Various methods are claimed to treat phobias. Their proposed benefits may vary from person to person.

• Some therapists use virtual reality or imagery exercise to desensitize patients to the feared entity. These are parts of systematic desensitization therapy.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial. Cognitive behavioral therapy lets the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns. CBT may be conducted in a group setting. Gradual desensitisation treatment and CBT are often successful, provided the patient is willing to endure some discomfort. In one clinical trial, 90% of patients were observed with no longer having a phobic reaction after successful CBT treatment.
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) has been demonstrated in peer-reviewed clinical trials to be effective in treating some phobias. Mainly used to treat Post-traumatic stress disorder, EMDR has been demonstrated as effective in easing phobia symptoms following a specific trauma, such as a fear of dogs following a dog bite.
• Hypnotherapy coupled with Neuro-linguistic programming can also be used to help remove the associations that trigger a phobic reaction. However, lack of research and scientific testing compromises its status as an effective treatment.
• Antidepressant medications such SSRIs, MAOIs may be helpful in some cases of phobia. Benzodiazepines may be useful in acute treatment of severe symptoms but the risk benefit ratio is against their long-term use in phobic disorders.
• Emotional Freedom Technique, a psychotherapeutic alternative medicine tool, also considered to be pseudoscience by the mainstream medicine, is allegedly useful.

These treatment options are not mutually exclusive. Often a therapist will suggest multiple treatments.

More Resources:
Phobia – Wikipedia
Phobias – What Causes Phobias
Phobias Symptoms – Symptoms of Phobias
The Anatomy of Fear
Phobias and Fears : Symptoms, Treatment and Self-Help