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Fears Become Phobias

Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of heights, blood, or bugs? These are just some examples of things most people are afraid of. These are things that they fear about.

Let's review some of what we have learned and how to put it work in our everyday lives.

As we discussed, fears are common to everyone. Each individual has his own fear, in one way or another, though some may say that they are fearless. Fear is just okay, rational fear that is. This is a fear that came about for the survival of an individual or species. Rational fears serve as our defense mechanism against things that pose danger in us. Examples of this kind of fear are fear of falling, fire, snakes, spiders, which are all just based on your instinct to react against them in order to survive.

The other kind of fear that is not good to have is irrational fear, or more popularly known as phobia. Irrational fear does not really help an individual in any way. It can even disrupt our daily activities. Those who have phobias can even miss out on a great opportunity ahead. Fears such as going to the dentist, riding an elevator, or going to an event are examples of irrational fears or phobia.

People who have phobia are aware that these kinds of fears are irrational but just can't afford to control it. Ross, director of the Ross Center for Anxiety, describes phobia as the fear of fear. It is the fear of being in a place or a situation, or with an object, where a person is afraid of the terrifying fear and do not know how to react.

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Remember the different categories of phobia

A phobia can build up in reaction to different objects or situations. There are three general categories of phobia - specific, social and agoraphobia.

Specific Phobia

This type of phobia is the extreme, unreasonable fear of a specific object, place or situation. Examples of this are excessive fear of height, bridges, enclosed places, flying, small insects or spiders. Among the most common are claustrophobia, which is the fear of being in an enclosed place like an elevator, and blood phobia, which involves fear of blood, doctors, needles, wounds, or any other situation that links to blood.

Social Phobia

This kind is also called the social anxiety disorder. This is characterized by the overwhelming fear of being embarrassed, humiliated, or scrutinized in everyday social activities.

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Agoraphobia

This is the type of phobia where the fear comes about from the thought that escaping or getting help from a certain situation seems impossible. This might be experienced in huge crowd, while driving or just standing in line. To some extent, some agoraphobics only feel safe when they are at home.

Phobias do have symptoms as well. Some symptoms are also the same as when facing actual threat that would result in either a fight or flight reaction.

There are some, though, that are beyond the normal response to fear. A symptom commonly seen is the anxiety reaction which includes excessive sweating, nausea, quick heart beat, trembling, and terror.

Other symptoms to identify phobia are intense fear of an object that does not pose any danger, intense fear of being judged or watched, uncontrollable reactions to something, and use of alcohol or other substance just to get rid of the feeling of anxiety.

Causes of Phobia

Classical Conditioning

John B. Watson, a psychologist and founder of behaviorism, was able to prove that fear of specific objects can be learned. He showed this by doing a case with Little Albert, an 11 month old baby. Before his experiment, Little Albert had not been afraid of the white rat. He even runs after it, catches and plays with it. So what Watson did was to show the baby the little rat and made a loud bang on a metal pipe. The little boy had shown fear to the loud noise prior to this. So when he saw the rat and heard the loud noise together several times, he learned to fear the rat even without noise.

Biological Causes

Some studies show that genes may have a part in having phobias. Another reason can be that adults unknowingly teach their children to avoid or be fearful of something. Other studies have linked a part of the brain called amygdala in being responsible for the body's response to fear.

Amygdala is a part of the human brain that connects memory with emotion. When in danger, the body sends signal to the amygdala, which then memorizes the fear associated with the object or situation and sets the body's reaction. Scary experiences can create a fixed memory of fear, and the amygdala triggers an automatic reaction to the fear when a similar situation arises.

Fear is something that we really cannot control at most times. It is our body's way of keeping us from danger. However, when these fears become irrational, which is phobia, they can have an impact on our lifestyle since phobias already interfere with our daily routines. If the fear seems to be really unreasonable already, one may even need to seek help in facing the fear and overcoming it.

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