Phobias: Study and Cure

Phobias

Study and Cure

Emanuele Viesti

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© 2012 Alvis Ed

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INDEX

Introduction

Phobias – Types and Characters

The Origin of Phobias

Specific Phobias

The Social Phobia

Agoraphobia

The Claustrophobia

The Ereutophobia

The Nosophobia

The Sexual Phobia

The School Phobia

The Zoophobia

The Aerophobia

The Dysmorphophobia

Phobia of doing Evil

Other Specific Phobias

Recognition of Phobias

Treatment of Phobias

Treatment of Social Phobia

Treatment of Childhood Phobias

How Win the Phobias

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The phobia is an extreme fear, irrational and disproportionate to objects, situations or activities that do not in themselves represent a real threat and to which most people compare it without difficulty. Sufferers, in fact, is overwhelmed by the dread of coming in contact with their phobic object or face the prospect of doing something that leaves indifferent most people (for example, the claustrophobic fails to take the elevator or subway, or more generally to be in small enclosed spaces). However, these conditions are not generally regarded as extremely enjoyable for almost anyone: many do not like bugs, share cramped spaces with other people, talking in front of a huge crowd, and so on. The difference between the annoyance and disturbance in itself, is that people who suffer from phobias are perfectly aware of the irrationality of certain emotional reactions, but they cannot control them and then trying to avoid them and the physiological events that appear in such circumstances are irresistible. The presence of the phobic object, or sometimes even just the thought of it, induces some physiological symptoms such as tachycardia, urinary and digestive disorders, nausea, diarrhea, choking, flushing, sweating, tremor and fatigue. They're evil and you want only one thing: escape. Escape, on the other hand, is a strategy of emergency. The tendency to avoid all situations or conditions that may be associated with fear, although it reduces the time the effects of fear, is actually a deadly trap: every avoidance, in fact, confirms the danger of the situation and avoided preparing the avoidance (in technical terms we say that every negative strengthens the fear avoidance). This spiral of progressive avoidances produces an increase, not only of no confidence in their resources, but also the reaction of the phobic person to the point that it interferes significantly with the individual's normal routine, occupational functioning, or with school or with the activities or social relations.

According to the DSM-IV, a phobia is a persistent and intense fear, caused by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation. This fear is excessive or unreasonable with respect to the real danger of the object. Examples of such stimuli may be: fear of flying (plane), fear of driving, be on heights, some animals, seeing blood, being in a place so narrow and closed. The individual has an immediate anxiety response when exposed to the phobic stimulus. This response may take the form of a Panic Attack situational or sensitive to the situation. In children, the anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging. The individual, whether adult, is aware that his fear is excessive or unreasonable, but he cannot control it. The individual tries in every way to avoid the phobic situation or object, if it cannot avoid it, however, expressed strong anxiety or distress. These behaviors aimed object avoidance, anxious anticipation or distress in the phobic situation tends to interfere in a major way with the normal life of the individual, so there is an impairment in occupational (or academic) interpersonal and social or the individual feels a strong discomfort because of the phobia.

PHOBIAS - TYPES AND CHARACTERS

The phobia is a marked and persistent fear with unique characteristics: it is disproportionate to the real danger of the object or situation, cannot be controlled by rational explanations, demonstrations and reasoning; exceeds the capacity of voluntary control that the subject is able to implement produces the systematic avoidance of the feared stimulus situation persists for a prolonged period of time without resolve or lessen and will involve some degree of mismatch for the person concerned, the individual recognizes that the fear is unreasonable and that is not due actual risk to the object, activity or situation feared. The phobia is a fear so extreme, irrational and disproportionate to something that does not represent a real threat, and with which others are compared without major psychological torment. Sufferers, in fact, is overwhelmed by the dread of coming in contact with an animal might innocuous as a spider or a lizard, or the prospect of doing something that leaves indifferent most people (e.g. The claustrophobic fails to take the elevator or subway). People who suffer from phobias are perfectly aware of the irrationality of certain emotional reactions, but they cannot control them. The anxiety, phobia, or phobic, is expressed by physiological symptoms such as tachycardia, urinary and digestive disorders, nausea, diarrhea, choking, flushing, sweating, tremor and fatigue. They're evil and you want only one thing: escape. Escape, on the other hand, is a strategy of emergency. The tendency to avoid all situations or conditions that may be associated with fear, although it reduces the time the effects of fear, is actually a deadly trap: every avoidance, in fact, confirms the danger of the situation and avoided preparing the avoidance ( in technical terms we say that every negative strengthens the fear avoidance). This spiral of progressive avoidances produces an increase, not only of no confidence in their resources, but also the reaction of the phobic person to the point that it interferes significantly with the individual's normal routine, occupational functioning, or with school or with the activities or social relations. The discomfort becomes increasingly limiting. Who has the phobia of the aircraft may be, for example, to give up many trips, and it becomes embarrassing if you have to move for work. Who is terrified of needles and syringes may give medical examinations or necessary to deprive the experience of pregnancy. Who's afraid of pigeons across the square and cannot enjoy sitting in a coffee table at an outdoor cafe.

More precisely, there are generalized phobias (agoraphobia and social phobia), highly disabling, and common specific phobias are generally easily managed by avoiding the subject feared stimuli, which are classified as follows:

- Type animals. Phobia of spiders (arachnophobia), phobia of birds or pigeons (ornitophobia), insect phobia, phobia of dogs (cynophobia), phobia of cats (ailurophobia), phobia of mice, etc.

-Type natural environment. Phobia of thunderstorms (brontophobia), phobia of heights (acrophobia), phobia of the dark (scotophobia), phobia of water (hydrophobia), etc..

- Blood-injection-type wounds. Blood phobia (emophobia), needle phobia, phobia of needles, etc. .. In general, if the fear is caused by the sight of blood or a wound or an injection or other invasive medical procedures.

- Situational type. Where the fear is caused by a specific situation, such as public transportation, tunnels, bridges, elevators, flying (aviophobia), driving, or enclosed places (claustrophobia or agoraphobia).

- Other type. Where fear is triggered by other stimuli such as fear or avoidance of situations that could lead to choking or contracting a disease (see also obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypochondriasis), etc.. A particular form of phobia regards the own body or a part thereof, that the person sees as horrendous, unwatchable, repulsive (dysmorphophobia). It 'important to clarify that the type of phobia from which you are suffering has no meaning unconscious symbolic, as it is suggested by some analysts, and fear is linked only to specific learning experiences involuntary wrong (not necessarily remember the subject), for whom the dangers associated with accidental to an object or situation is not objectively dangerous. It is, in essence, a process called classical conditioning. This conditioning is kept unchanged over time due to the spontaneous phobic avoidance that subjects systematically put in place. Contact with what causes phobia or just thinking about it, produces a sudden and disproportionate response of anxiety and fear, which can also translate into one or more panic attacks, particularly when presenting the impossibility of leaving from the source that causes the phobic reaction. So the anxiety is felt in the contingencies of the phobic stimulus, and its state amount varies proportionally to the intensity and proximity of the source of phobia and, even more than is possible or not distance himself from it, but the avoidance can trigger a vicious circle in which the anxiety that precedes the source of fear, called anticipatory anxiety, does nothing but add up, get worse and magnify the fear linked to the phobic stimulus. Triggers and so intertwined spiral ever closer, dysfunctional and hopeless, where with the passage of time, the psychophysical responses of anxiety and fear occur even in the absence of the object or situation that causes, or perhaps only imagining coming into contact with situations and / or similar or related objects. Unfortunately,