Taking a Look at Fears and Phobias

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.

When we think about phobias today we are less inclined to think of the greek god of fear but of an intense fear of something or situation.

The definition of fear is an unpleasant emotion resulting in being afraid of someone or something that is a dangerous threat. However, fear can come in many forms and affect people in several different ways. Fear is evident in all areas of life. Everyone experiences fear whether the outcome is positive or negative. Fear is no doubt inevitable. For example,whenever you have to present a speech, you may fear ridicule or judgement. Or when you are walking to your car late at night by yourself, you fear many dangerous situations that can happen. According to Mary C. Lamia in “The Complexity of Fear” in Psychology Today, fear in terms of psychology is described as the fear of the unknown, fear of death, and catastrophic fear. Mary C. Lamia has found

A phobic disorder is marked by a persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that presents no realistic danger. Agoraphobia is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety occasioned by the prospect of having to enter certain outdoor locations or open spaces. For example, busy streets, busy stores, tunnels, bridges, public transportation and cars. Traditionally agoraphobia was solely classified as a phobic disorder. However, due to recent studies it is now also viewed as a panic disorder. Panic disorders are characterised by recurrent attacks of overwhelming anxiety that usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly (Weiten, 1998).

A phobic disorder is marked by a persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that presents no realistic danger. Agoraphobia is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety occasioned by the prospect of having to enter certain outdoor locations or open spaces. For example, busy streets, busy stores, tunnels, bridges, public transportation and cars. Traditionally agoraphobia was solely classified as a phobic disorder. However, due to recent studies it is now also viewed as a panic disorder. Panic disorders are characterised by recurrent attacks of overwhelming anxiety that usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly (Weiten, 1998).

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.

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

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

Everyone experience fear occasionally in their life, but there are some who experience fears that are so intense that their daily lives are disturbed. An extreme fear towards a specific object or situation that is relentless and illogical to the point that a person avoids confronting the situation or object at all cost is known as a phobia. This anxiety disorder can interfere with the a person’s body and mind causing severe symptoms and disturbances to one’s everyday life, eventually leading to long hours of treatment with professional helpers. Many theories have been proposed to explain how phobias have developed, but the real challenge is to propose a

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).