What Is A Phobia
Almost everyone has an irrational fear or twoof spiders, 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, theyre 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, you can develop phobias of virtually anything. While most phobias develop in childhood, they can also develop in later life.
If you have a phobia, you probably realize that your fear is irrational, yet you still cant control your feelings. Just thinking about the feared object or situation may make you anxious. And when youre actually exposed to the thing you fear, the terror is automatic and overwhelming. The experience is so nerve-wracking that you may go to great lengths to avoid itinconveniencing yourself or even changing your lifestyle. If you have claustrophobia, for example, you might turn down a lucrative job offer if you have to ride the elevator to get to the office. If you have a fear of heights, you might drive an extra 20 miles in order to avoid a tall bridge.
Barbaras fear of flying
How Do You Get Treatment For Phobias
Phobias are really difficult to manage alone, and luckily, you dont have to theres help out there. Like many other anxiety disorders, they respond well to treatment. The first step is to see your GP or mental health professional, or get in touch with a professional service online or over the phone.
Your doctor will work with you, at a pace that suits you, to figure out a treatment plan that works for you. This could include a combination of therapy, medication and self-management strategies. Get some more information about treatments for anxiety disorders here.
How Do You Know If You Have A Specific Phobia
Here are some of the signs that you may have a phobia and should seek treatment for it:16You feel intense anxiety or fear toward a specific thing, such as an object, location, or activity.You feel intense anxiety or fear toward broader circumstances, like social settings or being in public.Your fear is so intense that it leads you to avoid the source of your fear or endure it with great difficulty.Your fear is interfering with your ability to enjoy life or function normally.
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When To Seek Professional Help
Anxiety can be debilitating, so its important to seek professional help if your symptoms are severe.
If you feel anxious on the majority of days and experience one or more of the symptoms listed above for at least six months, it may be a sign of an anxiety disorder.
Regardless of how long you have been experiencing symptoms, if you ever feel like your emotions are interfering with your life, you should seek professional help.
Licensed psychologists and psychiatrists are trained to treat anxiety disorders through a variety of means.
This often includes cognitive behavioral therapy, anti-anxiety medications or some of the natural therapies listed above.
Working with a professional can help you manage your anxiety and reduce your symptoms as quickly and safely as possible.
summary
If you are experiencing chronic symptoms of anxiety that are interfering with your life, it is important to seek professional help.
Az List Of Some Of The More Common Phobias
While not comprehensive, this phobia list offers a glimpse of the many phobias that can have a serious impact on a person’s life. As you may notice while you browse through this list, most specific phobias fall into one of four major categories:
- Fears of the natural environment
- Fears related to animals
- Fear related to medical treatments or issues
- Fears related to specific situations
One important thing to remember is that virtually any object can become a fear object. The names of specific phobias are often formed as nonce words, or words coined for a single occasion only.
These names themselves are often formed by taking a Greek prefix that represents the fear object and adding the -phobia suffix. Because of this, any attempt at a completely exhaustive list of phobias would simply be an exercise in futility. Any list of phobias could grow with the addition of newly coined terms for previously unnamed specific phobias.
While listing all of the phobias that may exist is not possible, it can be helpful to look through a list of some of the more commonly described phobias. As you can see by looking at this list, almost any object or situation can become the source of fear.
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How To Get Rid Of Pistanthrophobia
There are various therapies such as cognitive behavior therapy, exposure and response prevention, and psychodynamic psychotherapy that can help treat pistanthrophobia.
Slowly exposure and tolerance are developed to the stimulus they fear, just like it is done for those with fear of spiders, heights, etc.
The physician works on behavior modification and rewires the way a person views or thinks about any situation or object associated with fear.
The person is asked to put or visualize himself in a romantic relationship and talk about it with a clinician present. These ways the doctor gets to know about the progress of the treatment. By this, the clinician can help the person develop coping skills and find ways to self soothe the anxiety.
There are certain medications that can help in the treatment of pistanthrophobia.
The treatment can get successful with time and work. It not only helps a person trust again but also is good for overall health.
After a bad break up, it is a natural reaction for a person to put up barriers and avoid opening up to someone new again. If this feeling lasts for long it can lead to the development of pistanthrophobia, which can affect the ability to connect with other people romantically. With time and proper treatment, a person can learn new ways to trust other people and enter a healthy relationship.
Do not let the ghost from your past; resist you from finding love again. It might have disrupted the trust but cannot disrupt you happy ending.
How Are Phobias Treated
Desensitization therapy is a treatment for phobias that involves gradually exposing a phobic person to what he or she is afraid of until the situation or thing no longer produces fear.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a treatment that involves examining and changing underlying thoughts and behaviors that contribute to unwanted symptoms. CBT is an effective treatment for phobias. CBT has three components:
- Didactic component: During this phase, the treatment professional outlines expectations for therapy and encourages the patient to cooperate with the treatment.
- Cognitive component: In this phase, the treatment professional helps the patient uncover thoughts and assumptions that play a key role in producing phobic behavior.
- Behavioral component: This phase of treatment involves teaching the patient behavior-modification techniques to help him or her face phobic situations more effectively.
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How Common Are Specific Phobias
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that about 5%-12% of Americans have phobias. Specific phobias affect an estimated 6.3 million adult Americans.
Phobias usually first appear in adolescence and adulthood, but can occur in people of all ages. They are slightly more common in women than in men. Specific phobias in children are common and usually disappear over time. Specific phobias in adults generally start suddenly and are more lasting than childhood phobias. Only about 20% of specific phobias in adults go away on their own .
What Are The Causes And Risk Factors For Phobias
A variety of factors contribute to the development of phobias. Genes, cultural influences, and traumatic events can all contribute to phobias. Someone who has an immediate relative with a phobia is about three times more likely to suffer from a phobia than someone who does not have a similar family history. People with phobias try to manage stress by avoiding things they are afraid of. They may also find it difficult to minimize the intensity of fearful or stimulating situations, which reinforces the phobia.
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The Hipopotomonstrosesquipedaliofobia Is One Of The Longest Words In The Dictionary And In An Ironic Twist Is The Name Given To The Fear Of Long Words
The American Psychiatric Association does not officially recognize this phobia.;In contrast, hypopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia;;is considered a social phobia.
The new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders makes a very specific definition for social phobias.
Medical professionals use this manual to help them make diagnoses.;According to the manual, some of the criteria that social phobias should meet include:
- A distinct fear or anxiety about social situations where a person may be examined, such as meeting new people or having a conversation.
- The fear or anxiety are disproportionate to the social situation.
- The fear or anxiety is persistent and the social situation is avoided excessively.
- Fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes distress.
How Are Specific Phobias Treated
Treatment for specific phobias may include one or a combination of:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy: Psychotherapy is the cornerstone of treatment for specific phobias. Treatment usually involves a type of cognitive behavioral therapy, called systematic desensitization or exposure and response prevention therapy, in which patients are gradually exposed to what frightens them until their fear begins to fade.
- Medication: For situational phobias that produce intense, temporary anxiety , short-acting sedative-hypnotics such as alprazolam orà lorazepamà à may be prescribed on an occasional, as-needed basis to help reduce anticipatory anxiety. Unless a phobia is accompanied by other conditions such as depression or panic disorder, long-term or daily medicines are generally not used. Occasionally, serotonergicà antidepressantsà such asescitalopram oxalate , à fluoxetine ,à andà paroxetine may have potential value for some patients. More recently, common blood pressure drugs called beta-blockers have been used to treat anxiety related to specific phobias.
- Relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, may also help reduce anxiety symptoms.
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Symptoms Of Complex Phobias
While having a specific or simple phobia can be significantly distressing, complex phobias are perhaps the most difficult to manage. This is primarily due to the fact that they tend to be involved with many aspects of modern life, which means an individual has to face their fears on a regularly basis, and is not as easily avoided without having an adverse effect on your relationships, career and overall quality of life and wellbeing.; ; ; ;;
Symptoms you may experience if you have a complex phobia include:
What Are The Symptoms Of Specific Phobias
Symptoms of specific phobias may include:
- Excessive or irrational fear of a specific object or situation
- Avoiding the object or situation or enduring it with great distress
- Physical symptoms of anxiety or a panic attack, such as a pounding heart, nausea or diarrhea, sweating, trembling or shaking, numbness or tingling, problems with breathing , feeling dizzy or lightheaded, feeling like you are choking
- Anticipatory anxiety, which involves becoming nervous ahead of time about being in certain situations or coming into contact with the object of your phobia; for example, a person with a fear of dogs may become anxious about going for a walk because they may see a dog along the way.
Children with a specific phobia may express their anxiety by crying, clinging to a parent, or throwing a tantrum.
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What Are The Symptoms Of A Phobia
At the heart of a phobia, there is anxiety. There are three main types of phobias:
- Specific phobia, a persistent, irrational fear of particular objects or situations, such as snakes, spiders, heights, blood, flying, or elevators.
- Social phobia, or social anxiety disorder, a persistent, irrational fear of situations where you may be scrutinized or criticized or embarrassed by other people.
- Agoraphobia, a fear of leaving home, being alone, or being away from home in a situation where you feel trapped or helpless.
If you have a phobia that interferes with a normal social or working life, it’s time to get treatment. The right kind of therapy can often lessen your anxiety and may diminish or even remove the phobia.
Causes Of Specific Phobia
The reasons why phobias develop are not fully understood. Specific phobias tend to begin in children, whose developing brains are still developing patterns about how to respond to the world around them. A common example of this is a child who develops a phobia of dogs after being bitten by one, but there are many more subtle ways that a childs brain can take in information that teaches them to fear something. For example, they could learn to fear a dog by watching a movie that features a scary dog or watch a family member flinch in response to a dogs bark.1
Still, experiences in childhood are only one of many potential reasons why one may go on to develop a specific phobia. Genetics may also play a role.1Many specific phobias may be due to a complex interplay between genetics and life experiences. The same goes for social anxiety disorders and agoraphobia. Teens are more vulnerable to developing social anxiety disorders, likely because the teen years are marked by hormonal changes and new social pressures. Agoraphobia and panic disorders have a lot of overlap, and they both tend to start in young adulthood.6,11,12
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Psychological Symptoms Of Social Phobia
- Excessively worrying for days or weeks before a social event
- Worried about being embarrassed and people witnessing
- Using alcohol as a social lubricant to mask symptoms of anxiety
- Takings days off work, college or university due to anxiety
- Fear of talking during social situations, particularly if around people you are unfamiliar with
- Fear that people will notice physical signs that you are anxious
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The Difference Between Fear And Phobia
The term phobia gets thrown around a lot these days, but having a fear and having a phobia arent exactly the same thing.
Essentially, fear is temporary; phobia isnt.
Having a phobia creates a stumbling block in your life, and the fear it causes can be so strong that youll do anything to avoid the object of that phobia. Phobia that becomes debilitating is a type of anxiety disorder. Take, for example, a job offer. You made it through the hardest partlanding your dream positiononly to find out that your office will be on the 20th floor of an office buildingand you have a phobia of heights. In order to avoid being so high off the ground, you turn the position down and pass up a significant job opportunity because of your phobia.1
Phobias can be debilitating and crippling, and they can keep you from enjoying the things you love with the people you love. But it doesnt have to be this way. There is hope and help for people with phobias.
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Causes Of Phobia Of Long Words
Not much is known about the causes of this phobia.;But there are some causes and risk factors that are common in multiple phobias.
Some of these factors include:
What Are The Different Types Of Phobias
The fear associated with a phobia is much greater than that caused by stress or worry. Phobias cause extreme fear. There are many different types of phobias. It’s possible to be afraid of certain situations, animals, and social interactions. When someone is afraid of a certain object or item they are said to suffer from a specific phobia. The list of different types of phobias is endless. The following slides contain information about the most common phobias.
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What Are The Effects Of Phobias
Untreated, phobias can significantly interfere with one’s ability to function and enjoy life. People with phobias may experience problems at work, school, and with family and friends. Phobias may get better for short periods of time, but they don’t typically resolve without treatment. Phobias may go hand-in-hand with alcoholism. Those who struggle with alcoholism are up to 10 times more likely to have a phobia compared to those who don’t struggle with alcoholism. And people who have phobias are up to twice as likely to be alcoholics compared to those who do not have phobias.
Diagnosis Of Phobia Of Long Words
Generally, people with this phobia will probably never seek medical help.;People with a phobia would presumably take jobs where they were not exposed to long words and phrases.
However, if symptoms become unbearable or other symptoms arise, your doctor will ask you a series of questions about your symptoms to determine if you have a phobia or anxiety disorder.
They will also review your psychiatric, medical, family and social history.;Your doctor will also refer to DSM-5.
Because hippopotomonstrosesquippedalophobia is not officially recognized by medical and mental health associations as a phobia, it is technically not a diagnosable condition.
However, your doctor can offer general information about phobias and recommend treatment.
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