What Is Specific Phobia

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

A phobia is an extreme or irrational fear of something. Many phobias are in relation to one another. As people, we must realize that phobias cannot be fixed by ourselves. In order to help individuals that we may encounter, we must completely understand phobias. We cannot judge them for something they cannot help. To help an individual feel more at ease it is our job to know the causes, effects, impacts, and treatments of their phobia. This would help to completely understand the phobia and in the end, help us all to support each

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).

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 is an overwhelming and unbearable fear of something, such as an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Phobias are a lot profounder than fears. In my essay I will be looking at a scenario of a woman called Amy with an extreme phobia of birds and how we can explain her fear looking at different psychological theories that explains learnt behaviour.

fear of nature, fear of life itself. Then there is fear which has to do with aspects of experiences,

Fear is like a stalker, “He follows us, he keeps track” of the fears the beholder has. Through life, there are difficult obstacles and events that occur, inducing a new fear it a person. For example, usually people hold little fear of driving, but perhaps the next day they shake from the idea of driving because of a fatal car accident.

Phobias are a form of anxiety and a heightened sense of fear. Like fear, but times two or ten depending on how bad it is. There are several different forms of extreme anxiety, but the most common types of phobia is simple and social. These categories consist of phobias that involve objects, insects, or situations

Obviously today we do not come across wild animals as part of the daily routine; the definition of fear has evolved. As our environment and society continue to change throughout time, the sentiments and reactions that fall under the fear spectrum has grown and now common items such as small spiders and dogs elicit this feeling. Furthermore, similar to pre-historic times, fear can generate cognitive, physiological, and neurological changes in the individual, and in some instances, certain individuals develop this feeling at an abnormal rate allowing it to become pathological or maladaptive.

Phobias are described as "a persistent, irrational fear of an object, activity or situation that compels a

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).

Moreover, there is an environmental focus. People are anxious about their irrational fears as a result of the environment, they develop their fear. While I believe that an irrational fear can have a mental reason. Nevertheless, it connects to an environmental reason, due to not having control of a situation, something that is not only mental also environmental, simultaneously.

A research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health explains, “when the fear response is disproportionate or lasts a lot longer than what is normally expected from the situation - to a point where it interferes with an individual's well-being and daily functioning - it is classed as an anxiety disorder” (Sandoiu). Everyday we encounter new situations that can affect the way we act and how we function. Fear, a natural instinct that could stop people from living their lives to the fullest. However, fear can also protect someone from a harmful situation, such as the consequences of drugs. All people fear what they do not know. The unknown will cause a person to let fear consume him or her as a whole, almost like a virus of the soul. When fear takes over a person’s rational side is thrown out by his or her’s scary imagination causing him or her to feel that their life is unstable. Imagination overcomes reason when our minds are no longer capable of making logical reasons in a certain situation.