specific phobias

What are Specific Phobias?
Specific Phobias are patterns of excessive fear of
ordinary objects, situations, and activities. While
some phobias are caused by traumatic events,
most arise in the ordinary course of life without
apparent cause, and probably reflect a genetic
predisposition. Phobias are very treatable with a
treatment method called "Exposure". This method
helps you train your brain to have a different
response when you encounter the feared object or
situation.
Almost any object, location, or activity can
become the focus of a phobia, although certain
ones are far more common than others. Common
examples include: fear of dogs; fear of driving ;
claustrophobia (fear of confinement in small
places); fear of doctors ; fear of flying ; nervous
sweating ; emetophobia (fear of vomiting) ; blood
phobia ; fear of public speaking; snake phobia; fear
of heights, and many more.
Types of Specific Phobias
There are five general types of specific phobias.
Situational : typically of enclosed spaces such as
airplanes and elevators
Natural Environment: heights, water, storms, etc.
Blood-Injury-Injection Phobia : a fear of seeing
blood, often accompanied by a fear of fainting
Animal : snakes, spiders, dogs, any animal can be
the object of a phobia.
Other: includes fear of choking, vomiting, and
getting ill, among others.
Phobias are considered to be the most common of
the anxiety disorders, affecting more than 13% of
the population of the United States.
How Specific Phobias Work
The most disabling part of a phobia isn't actually
the fear. It's the efforts people make to oppose and
control their fears. Not only do these efforts
require you to give up ordinary activities that you
might otherwise enjoy, they also fail to remove the
fear from your life. Instead, they generally maintain
it.
How much trouble you have often depends on
what you fear, and where you live. You probably
won't have much trouble with a fear of elevators if
you live in a rural area. You probably wouldn't
have much trouble with a fear of snakes here in
Chicago, unless your significant other wanted to
take you camping.
Insects, dogs, and birds, on the other hand, are so
common that people with these fears often find
their lives become restricted no matter where they
live. These fears can really limit your enjoyment of
the summer months. I've known people with such
a strong fear of dogs that they (and their families)
could only take a vacation at a gated resort, where
they were assured there would be no dogs. People
with a fear of flying, or a fear of driving, often find
their lives are quite limited by the limits on their
transportation choices.
While these avoidances may temporarily avert an
experience of intense fear, they tend to preserve
the fear over time. So the more a person avoids,
the more firmly phobic they become. This is how
anxiety tricks you.
Are Specific Phobias Treatable?
Very much so!
Phobias are usually very treatable without
medications or long psychotherapy. With exposure
therapy , a person is helped to spend time with the
feared object in order to retrain his brain to accept
it. Properly done, this is a very successful, and
surprisingly brief, method of overcoming a phobia