Phobia – An Introduction

Phobia meaning:

An extreme or illogical fear of or threat to something.

What is Phobia?

A phobia is a type of mental disorder characterized by significant feelings of anxiety and fear defined by a persistent, obsessive, irrational, and excessive fear of an object or situation.

It takes 6-months, fear of a particular object and situation to develop a phobia. The victim takes high measures of safety other than the actual danger of situations or objects. The victim experiences fatal distress, a deep sense of dread, and panic attacks if the objects and situations that create fear are not avoided.

The effect of phobia can be different in different situations or in different persons. Some people encounter that the fear was irrational. Still, they are unable to avoid it. Usually, the effect interferes with daily tasks, work, relationships, and anything in the daily routine, and the person can not do anything about it.

Types of Phobia:

There are three types of Phobia following:

Specific Phobia
Social Phobia
Agoraphobia

Each phobia type falls in different kinds of phobias that are explained below:

Specific Phobia:

A specific phobia is any type of anxiety disorder that contains an illogical fear related to exposure to specific objects or situations.

Specific phobias fall within four main categories:

Fear of animals (spiders, dogs, insects)
Fear of the natural environment (thunder, heights, darkness)
Fear of Blood-Injection-Injury phobia (injections, broken bones, falls)
Fear of specific situations (riding, flying, get into elevator, driving)

Social Phobia:

Social phobia is known as a social anxiety disorder (SAD) defined as an anxiety disorder characterized by the feeling of fear and anxiety in social situations like public gatherings, public speaking or stage fright, public restrooms, or other social situations.

Social phobias fall within these categories:

Fear of public speaking (glossophobia)
Fear of performance (stage fright)
Fear of attending social gatherings
Others

Agoraphobia:

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder that triggers in open spaces or crowds.

For example, A person affected by Agoraphobia feels unstable in open spaces or in crowds.

Agoraphobias fall within these categories:

Being outside the home alone (Ecophobia)
Being in open spaces(Agoraphobia)
Being in a crowd of people(Claustrophobia)
Travelling by transportation
Being in areas such as a lift or in a shop

Signs & Symptoms:

Phobia:

An illogical feeling of fear
Physical symptoms

1. Sweating

2. Shortness of breath

3. Dizziness

4. Churning stomach

5. Other signs that reflect Intense body situation.

Diagnosis:

A Mental health professional is probably to ask you a few questions:

Will ask about your symptoms
Family history to ensure you are the only one or others have the same issue.
Any incident that causes the phobia like unexpected contact with spiders lead you to fear of spiders (Arachnophobia)
Tell the doctor all the situations, how you react, your behavior, your thoughts, your feelings and physical conditions
Tell the doctor how you avoid these situations
Tell how the phobia affects your life, daily life, personal relationship or what’s in your mind
Your doctor will ask you about depression and other factors use because it is common in people with phobias.

Facts about phobia:

There a lots of facts about phobia some them are mentioned below:

Phobia and fear are different things
Phobia may be inherited to you
Celebrity also have phobias
400 types of phobias out there
Many of them are didn’t exist anymore
There is a cure for a phobia (can be treated)
There is no one that he thinks he has not a phobia

Treatment:

Treatment includes some physiotherapy and medication depending on the kind of phobia.

There is one of the best treatment methods out there know as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This method has three stages following:

Didactic component:

In this stage, the person affected by a phobia is educated enough to know his fear and how to overcome the situation

Cognitive component:

In this stage, the person is made used to with the particular thing that brings fear to a person.

Behavioral component:

This stage is to modify the behavior of the person to handle the situation.

How can we deal with Phobia?

There are different ways of dealing with phobias, like consulting a doctor or a Sefl-help strategy.

Both are useful but also depending on your serc=erty of phobia. If it is a more critical situation, go for a doctor, but self- helping also has worth.

Let us talk about Self-helping:

This technique has three stage:

Create a list:

Create a list of thing that disturbed you or originate the feeling of fear

Arrange the list in order:

Arrange the list in order from least fear to extreme fear.

Follow the order of list step by step:

Now follow the ordered phases of the list, and that’s how you can easily overcome your fear.

References/Sources:

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/phobia

https://www.health.harvard.edu/a_to_z/phobia-a-to-z