Everyone is afraid of
something (even those who claim they aren't are probably afraid of looking afraid!). Fear is an
unpleasant reaction to a situation we deem dangerous. However,
fear
is useful in terms of keeping us safe as it prepared our body for
“fight or flight”: we either stay and deal with the issue or run
away from it.
On the
other hand, a phobia is a persistent irrational fear associated with
a specific situation, activity or object that isn’t a real threat,
and is subsequently avoided. Phobias can restrict people from
carrying out everyday activities and therefore can leave them
limited in their ability to carry out everyday tasks, or they will
avoid doing certain activities or going to specific locations for
fear of encountering the ‘cause’ of their phobia. Avoidance
behaviour can reinforce the fear, and is sometimes joined by anxiety
and panic attacks (and subsequent fear of panic attacks).
Oftentimes, phobias develop in childhood: it may be learned
behaviour from a parent, a faulty association with a real fear and
false stimuli; repression of unpleasant memories. The mind will
symbolically attach the feeling of fear that the child
experiences with an object or situation, thus producing a phobia.
with the attachment made, the subsequent presence of a situation or
object will trigger the fear response.
Phobias
can also be developed from witnessing an event or as a result of
learned behaviour. For example, hearing about a plane crash on the
news (and subsequent reinforcing accounts) may cause a fear of
flying; a mother who was afraid of spiders (and exhibited fearful
behaviour) may have conditioned the child to be afraid of
spiders.
The list
of phobias is extensive, but include the following:
-
agoraphobia
-
claustrophobia
-
fear of
-
balloons
-
birds
-
clowns
-
crowds
-
the dark
-
doctors/dentist
-
dogs
-
driving
-
flying
-
germs
-
heights
-
injections
-
spiders
-
success
-
talking on the telephone
-
thunderstorms
-
water
Treatment of
phobias vary from client to client, and can produce gratifying
results.
