Describing all Phobias, but Particularly Coulrophobia and Monophobia

Known as a mental disorder a phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it. Phobias tend to affect the way people live their lives, for example, their working and social environments, considering that they last for a very long time and are capable to cause intense psychological physical stress. It is considered today the most common mental and anxiety disorder in the United States (Matig Mavissakalian & David H. Barlow 1981 pp 2). There are many phobias such as: the fear of aging, fear of changing, fear of clowns, fear of getting fat, fear of being in closed spaces, etc.

Do you want to know how to face and conquer your fear or phobia? According to Fears

Fear is a powerful human emotion. It can make you do things you wouldn’t normally do, like risk taking and bad choices. Fear can spike your adrenaline. For example if someone was to lift a car off a run over child, that would be caused by adrenaline, which is caused by fear. According to several studies done by physicians

Fear is a chemical chain reaction in the brain. It is in the part of the brain that allows us to communicate and to speak with other people ("Layton, Julia"). The idea is an autonomic response in the brain with many parts of the brain involved. Fear starts with a scary stimulus and ends with a fight or flight response telling the human to fight back or run away. It starts with two processes the quick and messy way, and the clear and slow way ("Layton, Julia"). The quick way is when you are panicking and out of breath and the clear way takes a while and is when you calm down and realize it was nothing. Both of the processes happen simultaneously ("Layton, Julia"). The brain uses your blood stream and nervous system to create fear. When your muscles tighten and your heart races, you are probably in a state of fear. Without fear you would walk into traffic or pick up poisonous snakes. Fear saves our lives ("Layton,

Fear influences human behavior and the way people react to situations. When fear is perceived, the body starts to sweat, and a “fight or flight” reaction occurs. The body temperature is lowered down. The heart starts to pound and the body releases the hormone epinephrine into the bloodstream when it perceives a threat. This in turn increases the heart rate so that it moves blood into other parts of the body that may need it to act in the face of fear. Another side effect is shortness of breath, when nerves around the ribcage and torso are

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

A phobia can be acquired by a person by making the person associate one thing with something not pleasant or painful to them. The effect of this can be permanent if the extinction process on the person

“A phobia is essentially a human being's irrational fear of something. It could be an object, an animal, a situation or an environment. These fears are persistent, intense, excessive and unrealistic, which is primarily why phobias are deemed irrational. A clinically phobic person's reaction to what scares him/her may seem extreme and the fright may not appear to be justified.” (Grenier et al., 2011) A specific phobia is known by a deep and persistent fear of an object or situation which becomes anxiety. The anticipations of the stimulus may make the symptoms arise. Many individuals who suffer with this disease will avoid the stimuli. They will take extra steps and precaution to have no contact. The main characteristics that the DSM-5 describes for this disorder includes “the individual suffering from a persistent fear that is either unreasonable or excessive, caused by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation, exposure to the stimulus usually results in an anxiety response, the sufferer recognizes that their fear is disproportionate to the perceived threat or danger, individuals take steps to avoid the object or situation they fear, and the phobic reaction, anticipation or avoidance interferes with the individual’s normal routine and relationships, or causes significant distress. At last, the phobia that the person has to be constant for a period of six months or longer.” (American Psychiatric Association,

Every one of us either experiences or feel fear in certain situations or under some scenarios or conditions. Moreover, when we grow and step into the outside world, we get scared of everything,

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder that causes people to persistently become extremely irrational and strongly avoid/object a particular thing or situation when in their presence. The causes of phobias are still largely unknown, but what we do know is we all have fears in some shape or form; whether it be a common phobia such as: animals, insects, reptiles, the dark, acrophobia (heights), drowning, micro-phobia (germs), claustrophobia (closed spaces); or something less common such as: fear of rain or fear of beards.

Pamela Kulbarsh (2014) once wrote in her article titled Phobic Disorders: What Do You Fear? that “to be defined as a phobia, the fear must cause some level of physical or psychological impairment. […] Phobia is a fear gone awry. A phobia twists the normal fear response into something that is difficult, if not, impossible to control.” There are many different types of phobias; however, there are four ways in which a phobia can be categorized. The four different categories that a fear can be classified are as follows: animal, environment, situational, and injection/injury. A phobia involving an animal means a person has an intense fear of any particular animal whether it be a dog or a spider. The next type of phobia is an environmental phobia

Fear is something every single human being has at some point in their life. When you are in dangerous, threatening, or scary situations, fear is what your body will feel. It is the ability to identify danger and make a choice to either confront that fear or flee from the situation like for example, if you were to break a vase, you would hide from your parents. That choice is completely up to the victim, and depends on the person. Although fear is handled differently by every person, it is a common emotion that everyone feels. Some seek out to overcome their fears, and seek the feeling of adrenaline they get from overcoming. Others flee the situation and don't think twice about trying to overcome their fear. In worst case scenarios people freeze

In general, a phobia refers to “extreme [and] irrational fear reactions” (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p. 190). Phobias are developed through a process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves “a process in which one stimulus that does not elicit a certain response is associated with a second stimulus that does; as a result, the first stimulus also comes to elicit a response” (Powell et al., 2013, pp. 109-110).

Fear can create an instinctual response to perceived danger. A good example is of the time my husband and I were alone on a long hike in the jungles of Belize and came upon a fer-de-lance snake that would most likely have killed us with its bite. Without any time passing, my instinct of fight or flight emerged and I pushed my husband out of the way, telling him to run as I did. Also, in an instinctual state of fear, someone can perform tasks they did not think were possible such as being able to lift a

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).