What are phobias?

A phobia is an excessive and irrational fear reaction. If you've got a phobia, you'll experience a deep sense of dread or panic once you encounter the source of your fear. The fear are often of a particular place, situation, or object. Unlike general anxiety disorders, a phobia is typically connected to something specific.

The impact of a phobia can range from annoying to severely disabling. People with phobias often realize their fear is irrational, but they’re unable to try to anything about it. Such fears can interfere with work, school, and private relationships.

Causes

Genetic and environmental factors can cause phobias. Children who have an in depth relative with an mental disorder are in danger of developing a phobia. Distressing events, like nearly drowning, can cause a phobia. Exposure to confined spaces, extreme heights, and animal or insect bites can all be sources of phobias.

People with ongoing medical conditions or health concerns often have phobias. There’s a high incidence of individuals developing phobias after traumatic brain injuries. Substance abuse and depression are also connected to phobias.

Phobias have different symptoms from serious mental

illnesses like schizophrenia. In schizophrenia, people have visual and auditory hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, negative symptoms like anhedonia, and disorganized symptoms. Phobias could also be irrational, but people with phobias don't fail reality testing.

Risk factors

People with a genetic predisposition to anxiety could also be at high risk of developing a phobia. Age, socioeconomic status, and gender seem to be risk factors just for certain phobias. For example, women are more likely to possess animal phobias. Children or people with a coffee socioeconomic status are more likely to possess social phobias. Men structure the bulk of these with dentist and doctor phobias.

Symptoms of phobias

The most common and disabling symptom of a phobia may be a scare . Features of a panic attack include:

Ø  pounding or racing heart

Ø  shortness of breath

Ø  rapid speech or inability to speak

Ø  dry mouth

Ø  upset stomach

Ø  nausea

Ø  elevated blood pressure

Ø  trembling or shaking

Ø  chest pain or tightness

Ø  a choking sensation

Ø  dizziness or lightheadedness

Ø  profuse sweating

Ø  a sense of impending doom

Treatment options

Treatment for phobias can involve therapeutic techniques, medications, or a mixture of both.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is that the most ordinarily used therapeutic treatment for phobias. It involves exposure to the source of the fear during a controlled setting. This treatment can decondition people and reduce anxiety.

The therapy focuses on identifying and changing negative thoughts, dysfunctional beliefs, and negative reactions to the phobic situation. New CBT techniques use computer game technology to show people to the sources of their phobias safely.

Medication

Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications can help calm emotional and physical reactions to fear. Often, a mixture of medication and professional therapy is that the most helpful.

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