Fears & Phobias Cork Successful Treatment
Fears & Phobias Cork is it possible to successfully treat fears and phobias. Yes, it is!
For a complete listing of common fears and phobias, see below
Each fear or phobia is very unique and individual so I offer a free initial consultation where you come and have a chat with me about the problem. Ill get some history to the problem and assess how many sessions it would take to help you to successfully overcome the problem.
How Are Phobias Treated
Though some phobias are never completely cured, there are ways your doctor can help you get a handle on your phobias: referring you to a therapist, for example, or prescribing medication. Itâs important to seek help and get treatment for phobias. A person whose phobia goes untreated may become withdrawn, depressed, and unable to be in social situations.
How well phobia treatment will work depends partly on the severity of the phobia. Therapy can help many people learn to function effectively.
Types of therapy
Exposure therapy. Your doctor tries to change how you react to what you’re fearful of by gradually exposing you to it. These work well for specific phobias. For example, if you’re afraid of dogs, you may start by just thinking about dogs, then looking at a picture of one, and then spending time with a dog in a controlled environment. At each step, you practice relaxing. Once the anxiety is reduced, youâre ready for actual exposure. Relaxation techniques can help at this stage, too. The support of a trusted friend or family member also helps during this process.
For social phobia, your therapist may suggest gradual exposure to social situations, along with role-playing and rehearsal. Theyâll teach you methods to reduce the anxiety you feel and encourage you to be less critical of yourself.
Medications
â Citalopram â Escitalopram oxalate â Fluoxetine â Paroxetine â Sertraline
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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Ensuing Panic Or Anxiety
As an untreated person heads out onto the highway, that trapped sensation builds. People ruminate on this issue as they drive. As a result, the mind ends up in a panic or anxiety mode. Sweat starts to break out on the skin, the breathing becomes labored and the heart races.
Accidents can occur if a person continues down this anxiety pathway. Because those negative thoughts seem to be coming true during a panic attack, people simply stay away from these situations. Facing their fears, however, is the only way to overcome them.
Are You Suffering From Anxiety
Take our 2-minute anxiety quiz to see if you may benefit from further diagnosis and treatment.
A phobia is an intense as well as irrational fear toward one or more things or situations for which the level or intensity of fear does not match the actual danger of what you fear.
A phobia can be specific, like a fear of dogs or being high off the ground. But it can also be overarching, like being in any social setting or public place.2
While fear is a natural and universal human emotion, having a phobia is a medical diagnosis and not a word to be tossed around lightly. To understand phobias, it is helpful to have a deeper understanding of fear and why we experience it.
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Common Types Of Phobias And Fears
There are four general types of phobias and fears:
- 1. Animal phobias such as the fear of snakes, spiders, rodents, and dogs.
- 2. Natural environment phobias such as a fear of heights, storms, water, and of the dark.
- 3. Situational phobias including the fear of enclosed spaces , flying, driving, tunnels, and bridges.
- 4. Blood-Injection-Injury phobia, the fear of blood, injury, illness, needles, or other medical procedures.
Some phobias, however, dont fall into one of the four common categories. These include fear of choking, fear of getting a disease such as cancer, and fear of clowns. Other common phobias that dont fit neatly into any of the four categories include:
Social phobia, also called social anxiety disorder, is fear of social situations where you may be embarrassed or judged. If you have social phobia, then you may be excessively self-conscious and afraid of humiliating yourself in front of others. Your anxiety over how you will look and what others will think may lead you to avoid certain social situations youd otherwise enjoy.
Fear of public speakingan extremely common phobiais a type of social phobia. Other fears associated with social phobia include fear of eating or drinking in public, talking to strangers, taking exams, mingling at a party, or being called on in class.
Agoraphobia was traditionally thought to involve a fear of public places and open spaces, but is now believed to develop as a complication of panic attacks.
Anxiety And Older Adults: Overcoming Worry And Fear
Anxiety and Older Adults
Overcoming Worry and Fear
Feeling anxious or nervous is a common emotion for people of all ages and a normal reaction to stress. Feeling anxious can help us handle problems and strange situations, and even avoid danger. It is normal to feel anxious about illnesses, new social interactions, and frightening events. But when one feels anxious often and the anxiety is overwhelming and affects daily tasks, social life, and relationships, it may be an illness.
Anxiety is a common illness among older adults, affecting as many as 10-20 percent of the older population, though it is often undiagnosed. Phobiawhen an individual is fearful of certain things, places or eventsis the most typical type of anxiety. Among adults, anxiety is the most common mental health problem for women, and the second most common for men, after substance abuse.
Untreated anxiety can lead to cognitive impairment, disability, poor physical health, and a poor quality of life. Fortunately, anxiety is treatable with prescription drugs and therapy.
WHAT IS ANXIETY?
An anxiety disorder causes feelings of fear, worry, apprehension, or dread that are excessive or disproportional to the problems or situations that are feared. There are several types of anxiety disorders.
WHY SHOULD AN OLDER ADULT BE CONCERNED ABOUT ANXIETY?
WHAT LEADS TO ANXIETY DISORDER?
A number of things can contribute to an anxiety disorder:
SIGNS OF ANXIETY DISORDER
WHO CAN HELP?
MEDICATION
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Driving Phobia: Why It Affects Some People And How To Cope With It
- Post comments:
You are a competent driver, but occasionally cramp up behind the wheel. What you may have is driving phobia.
Dont feel embarrassed if you have this condition because it affects more people than you may think. Life Advancer explains what it is, why some people have it, and how to cope with it.
Question : 11 Individuals Who Suffer From Phobiasa Likely To Believe That : 1992472
11. Individuals who suffer from phobias
a. are likely to believe that their fear is justified.
b. suffer from uncued panic attacks.
c. are unlikely to have other psychological diagnoses.
d. have a disproportionate fear of some specific object.
12. Martin is afraid to fly. He knows his boss wants him to take a trip for the business. Martin feels miserable, because he wants to keep his job but cannot even imagine getting on a plane. The most likely diagnosis for Martin is
a. agoraphobia without history of panic disorder.
b. social phobia.
c. specific phobia, situation type.
d. panic disorder with agoraphobia.
13. Why do people with phobias continue to avoid the thing they fear?
a. Avoidance is reinforced by anxiety reduction.
b. There is something wrong with their fight or flight system.
c. They are cognitively unable to make any other decision due to their disorder.
d. Their low self-esteem causes them to choose not to fight their fear.
14. Which of the following is associated with a unique physiological response pattern?
a. agoraphobia
c. obsessive-compulsive disorder
d. generalized anxiety disorder
15. An evolutionary psychologist might say, “The unique physiological response in this disorder, involving fainting at the sight of the feared object, may have evolved because fainting might inhibit further attack from a predator.” What disorder is being discussed?
a. blood-injection-injury phobia
b. agoraphobia with panic attacks
c. social phobia
a. animal phobia
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Discovering Exposure Therapy As A Solution
The basic premise of Exposure Therapy is knowing that youre in control. A driver must simply maneuver across the highway to reach a destination. You control the car, its direction and speed.
Exposure Therapy starts out slow, such as asking a patient to drive a few feet in a driveway. Through progressive sessions, the person eventually drives onto a highway for a few miles at a time. Exposing the person to the fact that they are in control of the situation can ward off the phobia. It takes dedication and time to successfully complete this treatment.
For severe phobias, driving on the highway may be a work in progress. Dont give up on your treatment because overcoming the fear is possible. It simply takes initiative and willpower to fight it off. Youll be cruising down the road in no time with proper treatment.
What Can You Do About A Fear Of Driving
You may want to seek a consultation with a mental health provider experienced in the treatment of phobias and anxiety. If your concern is having a panic attack when driving, Greene says to find a provider who has experience treating panic disorder.
A therapist will recommend a variety of treatment options for a driving phobia, which may include psychotherapy, medication, support groups, or a combination of all three. Psychotherapy is often the first line of defense for severe driving anxiety or phobia. Several modalities can treat phobias, but some are recommended more than others.
According to Wind, exposure therapy is one of the most effective ways to treat a fear of driving. It encourages people to get comfortable with driving and become more confident about not losing control of the car.
The goal of exposure therapy is to help you confront your fears related to driving, either as the driver or passenger.
One small 2018 study found that virtual reality exposure for fear of driving can decrease anxiety. After evaluating the eight subjects , researchers concluded that virtual reality exposure therapy can play a useful role in the management of driving phobias.
Other modalities, such as individual therapy and psychoeducational therapy, can also complement exposure therapy to help you learn to manage your fears.
Your therapist may also recommend cognitive-behavioral therapy , which helps you identify distorted thinking and its role in creating fear and other issues.
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How Fear Works In The Brain
One of the ways the brain helps keep you alive is by warning you of dangers. When the brain senses danger, an internal alarm system is activated, sending out various signals that trigger feelings of fear or anxiety. These are physical and cognitive reactions triggered in response to whatever it is that your brain perceives as dangerous or scary.
Sometimes, we should be fearfulwithout fear, we would unknowingly put ourselves into life-threatening situations without taking proper precautions. But the difference between having healthy, occasional bouts of fear and having a phobia is that a phobia is by definition irrational: Despite the intense fear you feel, the circumstance or object of your fear poses little or no actual threat to you.3
Think of a phobia as the brains alarm system in overdriveit overestimates the threat of a particular situation, triggering intense anxiety and leading you to avoid that situation in the future. That avoidance actually makes a phobia worse because it solidifies the brains overblown association between the situation and its threat level.
Summary And Discussion Of Main Findings
Considering the results for the individual studies included in our meta-analysis, the effect sizes for the pre to post treatment efficacy of VR in comparison to in vivo exposure therapy varied largely , with some favoring VR exposure, some favoring in vivo exposure and some detecting no relevant differences. The wide range shows the high potential of VR, but also illustrates that VR exposure therapy could be less efficacious than in vivo exposure therapy. This raises a discussion on potential working mechanisms of a more or less efficacious VR exposure therapy if compared to in vivo exposure. On the one hand, variance in the effect sizes of the individual studies might be due to confounding variables, like differences in the distribution of participants’ characteristics for the two conditions . On the other hand, the variance could result from differences in the specific materials and procedures of exposure therapy in the individual studies . Furthermore, it could be due to differences in the efficacy of VR exposure for different kinds of phobic anxiety disorders. We discuss these factors in the paragraphs that follow.
To further discuss variables that might have influenced the efficacy of VR in comparison to in vivo exposure therapy, differences in the participants’ characteristics, in the technical features of VR devices, and in the concrete kind of VR and in vivo exposure environments and procedures are considered.
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What’s The Difference Between Fear And Phobia
Fear is a natural emotion triggered by the brain in response to situations that it considers dangerous. Fear protects us from danger, or at least allows us to calculate the risks of a scary situation and take precautions. A phobia is an exaggerated and intense version of fear that leads us to feel extreme anxiety in certain settings even though the situation poses little or no danger. While occasional fear can protect us, phobias can greatly interfere with your quality of life.
Tip : Learn To Calm Down Quickly
When youre afraid or anxious, you experience a variety of uncomfortable physical symptoms, such as a racing heart and a suffocating feeling. These physical sensations can be frightening themselvesand a large part of what makes your phobia so distressing. However, by learning how to calm yourself down quickly, you can become more confident in your ability to tolerate uncomfortable sensations and face your fears.
Perform a simple deep breathing exercise. When youre anxious, you tend to take quick, shallow breaths , which actually adds to the physical feelings of anxiety. By breathing deeply from the abdomen, you can reverse these physical sensations and feel less tense, less short of breath, and less anxious. Practice when youre feeling calm until youre familiar and comfortable with the exercise.
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When To Seek Help For Phobias And Fears
Although phobias are common, they dont always cause considerable distress or significantly disrupt your life. For example, if you have a snake phobia, it may cause no problems in your everyday activities if you live in a city where youre not likely to run into one. On the other hand, if you have a severe phobia of crowded spaces, living in a big city would pose a problem.
If your phobia doesnt impact your life that much, its probably nothing to be concerned about. But if avoidance of the object, activity, or situation that triggers your phobia interferes with your normal functioning, or keeps you from doing things you would otherwise enjoy, its time to seek help.
Consider treatment for your phobia if:
- It causes intense and disabling fear, anxiety, and panic
- You recognize that your fear is excessive and unreasonable
- You avoid certain situations and places because of your phobia
- Your avoidance interferes with your normal routine or causes significant distress
- Youve had the phobia for at least six months
Treatment For Chronic Phobias
Most people with phobias are aware of their fear, and this makes diagnosis and treatment easier and more accessible.
If the phobia has a very specific trigger, and the source is easily avoidable, most people do not need intensive treatment. However, with complex phobias, triggers are often unavoidable, and the phobia needs to be treated.
Left untreated, complex phobias can have a debilitating effect on a persons life. They may be unable to work and partake in everyday activities.
Fortunately, most phobias can be cured with the right treatment. Everyone is different, and so the phobia treatment plan needs to be tailored to the individual.
The first step in treating a phobia is to speak to a mental health professional. The doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist will recommend the best course of treatment. Often, treatment involves therapy or medications, or a combination of both.
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What Is A Chronic Phobia
Chronic phobias are a type of anxiety disorder affecting approximately 19 million people in the United States alone. An individual with a phobia will experience extreme fear and anxiety about an object, place, person, creature, or situation.
Even if the object of the persons phobia is harmless, they will be unable to stop themselves from feeling afraid and anxious.
In some cases, a phobia can cause the person to adapt their behavior and lifestyle in order to avoid this perceived threat. If faced with the source of their phobia, they may be unable to function and can even experience a panic attack.
Try To Set Realistic Goals
Lets say you decide to start training for a marathon, even though youre not a runner. Would you get up tomorrow morning and run 26 miles? Not a chance.
Driving anxiety is no different. While ambition can be a beautiful thing, it may do more harm than good if you set a goal to drive across the country, like, tomorrow.
Instead, think of this as a long game. Be patient and pace yourself with more realistic milestones. Over time, youll get to where you want to go.
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