The Conscious And Subconscious Facets of a Phobia

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.

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.

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).

Phobia is an irrational anxiety disorder about a thing or a situation. Having such disorder affects a person's livelihood and every day life.Some of the bad effects includes difficulty of maintaining your relationship between your family or friends or maybe even lover. It can also affect your performance in your job.Specialists have named many phobias but we chosed Athazagoraphobia. Athazagoraphobia, when defined in dictionary is said to be a morbid fear of being forgotten. This disorder has several other characteristics such as fear of being forgotten and fear of being ignored by people they love, people around them or even people they met in the internet for short, strangers. Athazagoraphobia is not only a fear of being forgotten but also a fear in forgetting. This fear goes on both ways of forgetting that is why it is hard to handle. Athazagoraphobia can be the illness itself or it can also be a symptom of another mental illness. For example, A narciccistic person may fear being ignored or forgotten.

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).

(3) Women are two to three times as likely to have phobias than men. There are three basic kinds of phobias: agoraphobia (fear of situations in which escape may be difficult), social phobia, and specific phobias. The DSM-IV has separated phobic stimuli into four basic categories: animal, situational, blood injury, and nature-environment. (3)

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

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.

There is one phobia in particular that the sufferer gets accused of being a hypochondriac, and thus the sufferer is essentially doomed to an existence of panic attacks, and it is called agoraphobia. To be agoraphobic, is to be afraid of wide open spaces, or anything that is not visibly enclosed, and being exposed to open spaces sends an individual into a severe panic state. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (1985), agoraphobia and hypochondriasis go hand in hand, showing “hypochondriasis as a somatic representation elaboration on the state of self-fragmentation” while agoraphobia is “defense against and an attempt to repair self-fragmentation”. This means that those suffer from agoraphobia are attempting to repair their state of being naturally, but the idea of, and fear of, being called a hypochondriac, sends them into denial. That denial is then represented by their unwillingness to express their situation with others, thus dooming themselves, in essence, to suffer alone with their

The subject of phobia can still be considered as a mystery as no concrete answers to why phobia occurs. The psychologist are still making serious attempt and experiments to find the cause and finding an answer to the problems of

Social Phobia involves a fear of interacting with others or being in a social situation, people with this type of phobia tend to avoid situation that could lead to something embarrassing or humiliating. People with social phobias often have a history of being shy as children. Specific Phobia is an irrational fear of some object or specific situation, such as a fear of cats, or a fear of being in crowded spaces. Other examples include a fear of scorpions, darkness, surgery, fear of death, fear of blood, and fear of heights. Another phobia called agoraphobia, a Greek name that means “fear of the marketplace”. The fear of being in a place or certain situation where escape is difficult or impossible if something should go wrong. People with agoraphobia cannot avoid their phobias source because it is simply being outside in the real world. The causes of phobias aren’t clearly established, phobias tend to run in families. It can be passed on from a family member who suffers from a phobic disorder, you may be more vulnerable to the condition. Symptoms of phobic disorders include the following: rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, chest pain, involuntary trembling,

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

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).