A Case Study Of Arachnophobia

Fear is one of the oldest,strongest, most uncontrollable and an unavoidable feelings. It can: make you sweat, make you cry, shake or even lose your appetite for food. It can also cause people to do stupid things that they never would do in ordinary circumstances. This can be seen in many different aspects of life. One place it can be seen is literature. It can also be seen in movies and t.v. The last place fear is shown is real life.

One who encounters phobias has to deal with a collection of uncontrollable symptoms when their

Written by Oxford English Dictionary, fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm, and is an emotion that is programmed into all animals and people as an instinctual response to potential danger. Fear isn’t always adaptive though. For example, a small amount of fear before an important speech serves a purpose. It encourages you to focus on your topic and avoid embarrassing yourself. This is a type

The biological explanation for the acquisition of phobic disorders establishes that phobias are caused by genetics, innate influences and the principles of biochemistry. This theory recognizes that an oversensitive fear response may be inherited, causing abnormal levels of anxiety. This is illustrated in the basis of inheritance, particularly the adrenergic theory that convicts that those who have an acquisition to phobic disorders consequently show high levels of arousal in the automatic nervous system, which leads to increased amounts of adrenaline, thus causing high levels of anxiety.

For a person diagnosed with agoraphobia, there are a number of restrictions and consequences associated

“While biological factors certainly increase the vulnerability to developing fear and phobia, findings have not yet confirmed that these behaviors are controlled by biological mechanisms” (Rofé). Treating and understanding, psychoanalysis, phobias are believed to be a defense mechanism against trauma that might have been brought up as child. It still debated wether phobias are biological or created through life experiences. Due to varied experiments and evaluation, stating phobias derive from young childhood traumas would be untruthful and not factual. In the theory of psychoanalytic fear and phobias are created if the child remembers the experience which have brought

According to DSM-V, “anxiety disorders include disorders that share features of excessive fear and anxiety and related behavioral

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

Generalized Anxiety Disorder first became an individual disorder in 1980. Woodman stated in her article, “The American Psychiatric Association separated anxiety neurosis into (1) panic disorder, characterized by spontaneous episodes of intense anxiety, and (2) Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a residual category for patients who have chronic, sustained anxiety without panic attacks” (Woodman, 1997). The separation of the two disorders was made at the time because of the responses people had with different medications. According to Woodman, Generalized Anxiety Disorder was finally given an independent status and a set of defined criteria of symptoms in DSM-11-R, with the main symptom of Generalized Anxiety Disorder being excessive worry. It is now known that it is differentiated by more than just different reactions to medicines, but with more systematical studies done, the symptom checklist has been edited to best discriminate between normal and pathological anxiety (Woodman, 1997).

Anxiety disorders is the most common grouping of psychiatric illnesses which can affect both children and adults. There is an estimated 19 million adult persons in the United States suffering from an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders stem from numerous sources, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) categorizes these disorders as General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder, and phobias. Anxiety disorders are treatable and manageable by psychosocial therapies, medication, or both, though only about one-third of those suffering from

A phobia is an overwhelming and unbearable fear of something, such as an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Phobias are a lot profounder than fears. In my essay I will be looking at a scenario of a woman called Amy with an extreme phobia of birds and how we can explain her fear looking at different psychological theories that explains learnt behaviour.

Furthermore, phobia of spiders is a case where the biopsychosocial approach to understanding anxiety is not helpful, and an example of that is Kate phobia (The Open University, 2016a). The reason is that spider phobia happens because of an environmental learning process about a frightening experience, and an evidence about this is the case study of “little Albert” (McLannahan, 2010, p107). On the other hand, snake phobia is the result of the evolutionary process of human, which is genetically inherited for protecting the survival of human; thus, it has a biological explanation only (McLannahan, 2010, p108). Also, there is evidence from twins’ studies for the genetic predisposition for specific animal phobias (Kendler, et all, 1992, cited in Mclannahan, p 109). Thus, a biopsychosocial approach did not contribute to understanding these specific phobias.

As you walk the streets all around you there are individuals who may live their life in fear of the petrifying clowns that appear out of nowhere, the spine-chilling darkness that creeps in at dusk, or even the nauseating germs of others surrounding you, but what if you knew someone simply terrified of the outdoors. This may seem strange, but these individuals are constantly living in fear of the outside world away from their “Safe Zone”. From the moment they wake they fear the outside world, constantly panicking about what could happen if they venture to the outdoors. Agoraphobia affects between 5-12% of Americans (Misconceptions of Agoraphobia), and is essential to become aware of the true definition of Agoraphobia.

Psychological Explanations of One Anxiety Disorder Phobias are an example of an anxiety disorder and the psychological explanations of these are cognitive, psychodynamic, behavioral and social factors. The Behavioral, Psychodynamic and social factors of the psychological explanation will be discussed in greater detail. Behavioral explanations say that all behaviour is learnt whether it is normal or abnormal and this approach has been applied to humans and animals.

However, phobia can even cause people to risk their health. For example, the fear of dentists can leave people suffering from it willing to risk the health of their teeth in order to avoid having to go through an exam or procedure ( MacKay). When one knows about an upcoming confrontation, it can be the reason why one can not sleep or finds it hard to focus on important tasks. Due the change in daily routine, this unrealistic fear can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, brought on by and object, event or situation. But even animals have anxieties and phobias just as every human being (www.phobia-help.de). A phobia is an irrational fear, one knows that the object or situation, one is scared off, can not hurt one, but one is still afraid. A reason for this is that the human mind can not distinguish what is real and imaginary. When one has uncontrollable anxiety attacks, he loses rational judgement, leading to complicated problems. However, anyone can develop a phobia, men and women, teens and young adults, and elderly lady or a one-year-old boy (MacKay).