Discuss the biological explanation for phobic disorders

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

It is believed that faulty genes can cause some disorders that have a psychological effect. A way in which this can be tested is by doing studies on twins as they have the similar genetics. McGuffin et al did a study in 1996 where they compared 109 sets of twins in order to investigate how likely each twin was to develop depression. They looked at the concordance rates for depression in MZ and DZ twins, they expected that MZ twins either both have depression or neither have depression. So therefore its expected to find a higher concordance for depression in MZ twins that in DZ twins. The results showed that if one non identical twin developed depression that there was a 20% likelihood that the other would too, in identical twins this rose to 46%. This study therefore proves that genetics can have a massive impact on abnormality.

Twin studies are a mainstay of the nature verse nurture debate because they allow researchers to conduct “natural experiments” on human beings. When researchers try to determine the relative importance of genetics and environment with regard to a certain condition, they have a hard time because they cannot generally get people with the same genes. This is where twin studies come in. Twins studies are part of the method used in behaviour genetics, which includes all data that are genetically informative. E.g. siblings, adoptees, pedigree data etc. Researchers use this method to estimate the heritability of traits and to quantify the effect of a person 's shared environment (family) and unique environment (the individual events that shape a life) on a trait.

Background The movie “What About Bob?” is about a man name Bob Wiley who suffers from multiple phobia personalities. Bob is afraid to go outside and fears for his life. To get over his fears, Bob talks to himself and carries his fish Gail with him. When Bob psychiatrist quits his job and moves out of town, he refers Bob to his colleague Dr. Leo Marvin. Dr. Marvin is a successful psychiatrist who lives in New York City.

Though the experience of phobias is relatively common and their physical characteristics are generally well understood, there is no real consensus on the neurobiological basis of phobias. Instead, there are currently several different models and theories that work to try to understand how and why phobias occur in the human brain. Most hypotheses regarding phobias take a different approach, from biological to psychoanalytic to evolutionary. Is there one model that seems "less wrong" or more satisfying in our efforts to understand the biology of phobias? Using the various models, how do phobias seem to come about? How does thinking about phobias add to our understanding of the brain and behavior?

Twin studies have been a large part of the growing debate on whether genetics or environment (nature v. nature) is responsible for the cognitive, socio-cultural and biological development. In order to properly assess twin studies it is important to know why and how they are relevant in psychology. Identical twins are especially effective in research particularly in the field of developmental psychology and behavioral genetics due to the monozygotic genes which means they originate from a single zygote (fertilized egg) which essentially means they share 100% of the same genes. Due to this exact copy of genes between twins means this can be efficiently be used in order to observe the impact of

Of the many disorders presented in chapter 15, I find phobias the most interesting. Phobias are more than just a strong fear or dislike. A specific phobia is diagnosed when there is an uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid some object or situation. There are numerous types of phobias. A few common phobias are; agoraphobia, which is the avoidance of situations in which one will fear having a panic attack, especially a situation in which it is difficult to get help, and from which it difficult to escape. Social phobia, which refers to an intense fear of being watched and judged by others. It is visible as a fear of public appearances in which embarrassment or humiliation is possible, such as public speaking, eating, or performing.

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.

Specific phobia, also known as simple phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and unreasonable fear of something or fear of a situation, wherein such fear is not proportionate to the danger or risk of that thing or situation that a person has the fear of. The five sub-type of specific phobia are the animal, natural environment, blood injection injury, situational and others. The most common specific phobia is the animal phobia. Examples of this animal phobia include fear of dogs, snakes, insects or mice. To prevent over diagnosis of specific phobia, DSM 5 have made several changes based on the over assessment of danger or erratic fear. To be considered as one of the specific phobias, it should meet the requirements

To continue the research, Jordan Smoller distinguishes this section of the genetics of anxiety, “…the majority of the genetic association studies of the anxiety disorders have been candidate gene studies based on a limited number of biological hypotheses. [These are] commonly focused on genes related to monoaminergic neurotransmitter systems [(refer to the particular neurotransmitters dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin)], neuropeptides, and HPA axis function [(hypothalaic-pituitary-adrenal axis)]” (Smoller, p. 308). Individually, settled test creature models catch critical parts of human nervousness and dread conduct, and neuroimaging considers have gained free ground in mapping the primary and practical segments of uneasiness/fear symptoms.

Anxiety and phobias can be induced via mechanisms involving a variety of stimuli. Fear-inducing stimuli can trigger the formation of fear memories via classical conditioning that can be reconsolidated if the reminder of the stimuli or the specific fear-associated stimulus itself is present. Recently, as well as over years of research, efforts have been made to understand the manner in which the fear memory pathways are consolidated and paved with the goal of learning how to inhibit or undermine the reconsolidation of such pathways. Knowledge obtained through experimentation involving a noradrenergic beta-blocker, propranolol HCl, has demonstrated that this pharmacological antagonist acting against beta-adrenergic receptors present in the amygdala can disrupt the fear memory pathway. Although this information has been helpful in understanding the circuitry of fear memories and the role of inhibition in such pathways, it has also led to more questions pertaining to clinical applications of drugs such as propranolol HCl. In fact, Marieke Soeter and Merel Kindt sought to understand the role of propranolol HCl in impeding the reconsolidation of fear memories in a group of spider phobic women in a recent study. Throughout this analysis, the purpose, research methods, results, conclusions, potential problems, and future directions of this study will be considered.

Fear is an emotion experienced in most all living creatures; this emotion is experienced precisely because it is a survival mechanism developed to protect an individual during dangerous or uncomfortable situations, combining physical and psychological aspects together in the uniformity of monism. Comparing studies between one concerning a lessened neurological processing of pain in fearful subjects that are administered light shocks and a separate study concerning the recognition of fearful bodily expressions, the true invariability of psychology and physiology will be addressed. Fear can be thought of as a series of reactions that occur, beginning with a stressful stimulus that activates the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the “fight

This specific phobia can lead to the person experience of an intense fear when not being able to break out of a populated area (Barlow & Mavissakalian, pp 4). This causes people having to evade open and heavily crowed environments with little possibilities to exit over their massive fear of going through a panic attack. Therefore, today there are signs in many rides at themed parks that warn people of the closed areas. This specific category of phobias causes the person to fear traveling on bus or even waiting in a line. This phobia can also lead to being dependent of someone because they are too afraid to go outside of their homes. Barlow & Mavissakalian (1981 pp 4-5), implicated that the clinical picture painted is consistent and consists or fears of going out to public places and open and crowded places, fears of walking alone or using any means or public transportation, and fears of being alone at home. Agoraphobia is the most disabling of all phobias and usually begins in early adolescence.

Thereby it is not completely clear, what the causes for phobia are. Phobia is often caused by something scary that happened earlier in somebody’s life, but not every one develop phobias after special experiences. An explanation for this could be that for some people certain parts of the brain and specific neural pathways are associated with phobias. It is

A research group stated "Specific phobia is one of the most prevalent disorders in the general population and yet it has received limited attention from researchers in the growing field of neuroscience" (Caseras et al., 2010). The need for understanding phobias is imperative for the people who are suffering from the symptoms that challenge their daily life. One study has done research on links between the phobias and neurobiological substrates. The authors state: