What is Phobia
Phobia by definition is “an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something “.
When someone has phobia the person experiences a deep sense of panic when he/she interacts with the source of their fear. Even though phobia is a type of anxiety disorder but its usually connected to a specific thing, whether its a situation, an object, or a certain place.
The effect of a phobia can be anything between being just annoying to being incredibly disabling. Usually people with phobias realize their fear is totally illogical, but unfortunately they can’t to do anything about it. These fears can the be irritating & interfere with the person’s abilities & efficiency at work, social visits , school , and any personal relationship.
Causes Of Phobia
The causes of phobia is unclear maybe because of the different types of it or because its not necessarily related to a specific action or situation. Sometimes a genetic and cultural factors can be related, in which some cases have shown certain phobias runs in the family, for example a twin raised separately could develop the same phobia, but its a rare condition. It also may occur to a certain cultural group a clear example for that is Taijin Kyofusho , which is a social phobia that occurs almost only in Japan . This phobia is the fear of offending or harming others feelings in a social situation. Also children being exposed to a close family member whom is suffering from a phobia can develop the same symptoms. Another cause & its very common is being exposed to a certain situation which could traumatize the person, such as insect bite, being locked out in a confined place, or extreme heights.
Phobia is also known to be a result of ongoing medical conditions, brain traumas, drug abuse, or depression.
A phobia whatever its cause could be developed during any point, during childhood, teenage years ,or even adulthood , and generally they are usually to a highly stressful situation , and even though there are many reasons of phobia its not always clear why it occurs .
Phobia Types
Phobia is divided into 3 main types
• Social Phobia
• Agoraphobia
• Specific Phobias
Social Phobia
Also known as Social anxiety disorder is the fear of social situations where the sufferer fears to be humiliated or embarrassed by social interactions with others.
people with SAD mostly suffers from distress & hard ability to function in some parts of their daily life. What could trigger that fear is the critic characters.
Symptoms of social phobia could be blushing, sweating, trembling, palpitations, nausea , pounding or racing heart , rapid speech or inability to speak . but unfortunately being in these situations for the sufferer could cause them to use drugs or alcohol to reduce their feeling of fear and anxiety , which could cause alcoholism and addiction , some patient could also develop eating disorders , and all this is a result of being undiagnosed ,untreated ,or both .
Treatment Line:
Cognitive-behavioral therapy has been very successful and highly recommended as a 1st line treatment in this condition, it could be delivered individually or in a group setting. The cognitive and behavioral components are designed to seek changing in the thought patterns and physical reactions to the situations that triggers the anxiety to the patient.
Medications including beta blockers and benzodiazepines could also be used especially when the patient is not interested in therapy.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is the fear of being in a place where the person feels trapped in an unsafe environment without an easy way to escape.
These places could be an open space, public travel, shopping market, or simply being outside their home.
Exposing to these situations can cause panic attack. These symptoms happen every time they find their selves in a similar situation and by repeatedly feeling this stressful fear some cases simply stop leaving their homes. It could also be combined with the fear of having panic attacks – panic disorder, where the patient is afraid of having a panic attack without getting the help he/she needs. In the childhood cases the patient has the fear of getting lost , & most of the old adult cases fear of falling & harming their selves.
Symptoms could be fear of open places or any place where its hard to escape a hard situation, becoming housebound for long time, feeling detached and isolated from others , feeling helpless & even fear of panic attacks & anxiety.
Treatment Line:
The Main goal of the treatment is to get the agoraphobic patient to function effectively, but the results of the treatment depends on the severity of the phobia.
Systematic desensitization, also called “exposure therapy,” is a behavioral technique used to treat phobias, which is based on having the patient to relax, and then imagine the situations that he fears, starting from the least fearful to the most fearful. Then they start Graded real-life exposure which has been used to help people overcome their fears. This technique works by exposing the patient to real forced situations, starting also from less to more extreme situations. For example, the person starts with meeting a small group of people before being exposed to more crowded situation.
Specific Phobias
A specific phobia is constant fear of an object or situation which brings about an irrational and unreasonable fear in the presence of, or anticipating, a specific object. It can also include fear of losing control, panicking, and fainting which is the direct result of confronting the cause of the phobia.
A specific phobia has many types and it’s very common for most of the people to have one or more phobias such as Arachnophobia ( fear of spiders which is the most common one ) , Acrophobia ( fear of heights ) , Musophobia ( fear of mice & rates ) , Hydrophobia ( fear of water ) , Nyctophobia ( fear of darkness ) or even Insectophobia ( fear of insects ) .
And obviously the cause of a specific phobia is related to the type , whether its being in a situation that traumatized the patient or in some cases they are simply born with this fear .
The DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) divided specific phobias into five subtypes:
• Animal
• Natural environment
• Blood-injection-injury
• situation
• Other
In children, blood-injury phobia and phobias involving animals, natural environment (darkness) usually develop between the ages of 7 and 9
and it’s a reflection of normal development. But generally specific phobias are most prevalent in children between ages 10 and 13.
Treatment Line:
There are various of treatment plans in the case of specific phobias such as
Exposure Therapy:
In this treatment the patient is progressively exposed to the trigger of their fear, and it done repeatedly until the situation no longer a fear trigger to the patient. its done by two techniques , imaginal exposure ( which is imagining confronting the feared object or situation ) or in vivo exposure ( which is confronting the trigger in real life situations ) , normally the treatment plan includes both methods . its better to be exposed for longer periods & more frequently for it to work.
Cognitive Therapy:
Its making the people learn the thoughts of their anxiety & fear , and then replace it with more realistic thoughts , for example someone with fear of something is shown proves that this thing is not as dangerous as he thinks . But this treatment mostly isn’t used alone since most of phobic people already knows that their fears are not logic.
Relaxation:
And its used to help the person to cope with the situation and the stress & physical reactions that are related to their phobias , such as breathing retraining and exercise.
Medication:
And its not usually used in specific phobias , but it’s helpful sometimes with people with situational-type phobias (i.e. flying) , as they can take anti-anxiety medications or or serotonin reuptake inhibiters before exposing to the feared situation .
But from my experience people with specific phobias hardly try to get themselves treated so they try to cope with their fears & try their best to avoid being in a situation where they could by any mean meet their fears , and its hard for them to find a medication since they could suddenly find themselves confronting their triggers , for example the Insectophobia , its impossible to predict when you would find yourself confronting a feared insect , & when it happens you find yourself feeling helpless & trapped & if its in a closed place it could cause the phobic person a panic attack . This applies to most of the specific phobias , I have 1st degree family member with Insectophobia and Nyctophobia, from my observations she gets panic attacks if she felt trapped in a place where she cant escape insects or couldn’t find a source of light in any dark place , her insectiophobia is caused by a childhood situation but her nyctophobia doesn’t has a certain reason , its impossible to ask her as a phobic person to confront her fears even as imaginal exposure , Cognitive Therapy is not helpful since she already knows her fears are irrational , also medications cant be used when you cant tell when will you be confronted with unwanted situation .
As a result to the study case I can safely say that phobia is not always treatable condition but in some cases treatments could work effectively.
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