Specific Phobia Research Paper

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

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.

Everybody that you come into contact with on a daily basis will have a fear of something but a phobia can be defined as an irrational fear, this can provoke feelings of intense anxiety and initiate avoidance behaviour.

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.

“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

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?

Universal human phobia is close interpersonal violence that a person experiences throughout their life. This phobia is not brought upon by mother nature, but by the actions of another human being. In the book, the authors explained how people were not angry if a tornado sent them to the hospital and destroyed their house. Yet when a gang beats them and destroys their house, it’s personal and the victims are angry. The actions of others that causes people to be scared is the concept of universal human phobia.

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.

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,

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.

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.

Fear is a feeling induced by experience, perceived danger, or watching a frightening traumatic accident. The fear responses arise from the perception of danger and ultimately a change in behaviour, such as fleeing, or hiding or from perceived traumatic events. Every person has fears and different fears may be different adaptations that have been useful in our evolutionary past. I have fears too, and sometime, I feel embarrassed to intersperse my fear with others.

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).