Phobias: The Greek God Of Fear

The article, “Phobia Statistics and Surprising Facts About Our Biggest Fears”, says that around forty-five percent of panic attacks can cause the fear of crowds(2 of 11). This is because the attack might have been embarrassing, so the individual fears going back to comparable situations. Another article titled, “Fear of people and how to overcome it”, says that phobias could actually be caused by genetic predispositions. This meaning it is in an individual's genes to be afraid of particular social situations(2-3 of 7). Many different sources suggested that most phobias could come from traumatic events. For instance, a child might have been trapped in a crowd of lots of people. This could have scared them and as a result, they avoid these situations. Phobias can be caused by many different circumstances which make them specific to

Fear is one of the most basic and vital aspects of human behavior. To our ancestors, it was often the only thing that kept them alive, but today, with less and less things in the natural world people have to be afraid of, it usually just keeps them from working towards their goals. Fear can prevent one from pursuing their dream in that it forces us to be afraid of the future and can act as a catalyst for people giving up.

Everybody has a different perspective on fear and everybody is affected differently. The Mental Health Foundation stated that, “Fear can last for a short time and then pass but it can also last much longer and stay with us. In some cases it can take over our lives, affecting appetite, sleep, and concentration for long periods of time. Fear stops us from travelling, going to work or school, or even leaving the house.” This quote shows that fear does not affect people as much as it does to others. Although, fear can affect people for a long time which can cause them to stay isolated from others. There are many types of fears and some examples of fears include: the fear of the number 13, the fear of spiders, the fear of heights, and many others. There are hundreds of fears and many people have these fears and everybody is affected differently.

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.

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?

Phobias, an extreme fear of something, can best be understood through use of the psychodynamic perspective. Oftentimes, childhood traumas or exposure to the object of the fear at an early age can lead to the phobia to manifest itself when the patient is an adult.

The concept of fear dated back as far as 400 BC. During this time, Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician described the overly shy person as “someone who loves darkness as life and thinks every man observes him”. When fear is persistent and exaggerated, it results to tension and stress and consequently, anxiety.

Phobia in clinical psychology context is an irrational fear of something or situation. The person suffering from phobia will try their best to avoid their phobia. In the extreme case that the person suffering from the phobia cannot avoid it, they will attempt to endure through the situation with a lot of distress ADDIN EN.CITE Swanson1986158(Swanson, 1986)15815817Swanson, Guy E.Phobias and Related Symptoms: Some Social SourcesSociological ForumSociological Forum103-130111986Springer08848971http://www.jstor.org/stable/684555( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_2" o "Swanson, 1986 #158" Swanson, 1986). Phobias can cause difficulties in a person performing their daily activities.

Things you fear can become a part of who you are, even in your everyday life. “He knew that fear was the only weapon he had left to save my life and if I didn’t fear the threat of the plague, then dammit, I was going to fear him!” (Brooks 46) People can do anything to save themselves or others in a panic of fear. Seeing others in desperate situation of saving themselves sparks fear in

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,

There are four different types of anxiety disorders; Phobia, Generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Phobia is the greek word for “morbid fear”. Phobia is intense, irrational fear of an object or situation that is not likely to be dangerous. People who experience phobias realize their fears are groundless, their efforts to avoid some objects interfere with everyday life. There are two topics within phobias; Specific and Social.

Conceivably, everyone experiences some degree of fear at some point in their life. For instance, whether it is flying for the first time or taking their drivers test, the list can go on and on as to what people fear. On the other hand, however, when clinicians are noticing fear or anxiety occurring the majority of the time regardless of the situation and preventing someone from participating in family activities, job related tasks or interferes with other activities

There are fears which are healthy and can be separated from extended fears in phobias. The patient in phobia case feels troubled with overstated, unreasonable fear and anxiety confronting direct contact with a certain object the lift and situation that stimulate immediately panic attack. The possibility of exposing their certain fear or certain situation could have an effect on the nature of response (Flykt, 2005). Mrs. F also is conscious that this situation of anxiety is irrational and it does affect in her daily life with a matter of phobia reaction. According to some researches if this phobia it lasts up to six months then it is classified in the group of suffering from phobia disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

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).

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).