Phobia
Psychologists use the term phobia, which comes from the Greek for fear, for a number of psychological conditions that can seriously disable their carriers.
Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorder. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 5.1 and 21.5 percent of Americans suffer from phobias. Broken down by age and gender, the study found that phobias were the most common psychiatric illness among women in all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25.
Most psychologists divide phobias into three categories:
- social phobias - fears to do with other people and social relationships eg. performance anxiety, fears of eating in public etc.
- simple phobias - fear of a single specific panic trigger, eg. dogs, flying, running water and so on.
- agoraphobia - a generalised fear of leaving your home or your small familiar 'safe' area, and of the inevitable panic attacks that will follow.
Many simple phobias can be traced back to a specific triggering event, usually a traumatic experience at an early age. Social phobias and agoraphobia have more complex causes that are not entirely known at this time. It is believed that heredity, genetics and brain-chemistry combine with life-experiences to play a major role in the development of anxiety disorders and phobias.
Phobias vary in severity among individuals, with some phobics simply disliking or avoiding the subject of their fear and suffering mild anxiety. Others suffer fully-fledged panic attacks with all the associated disabling symptoms.
The name of a phobia generally contains a Greek word for what the patient fears plus -phobia. It is possible for a sufferer to become phobic about virtually anything, but common phobias include:
- acrophobia, fear of heights
- arachnophobia, fear of spiders
- agoraphobia, fear of open places and being out in public, from agora = public square
- aleurophobia, fear of cats
- claustrophobia, fear of small enclosed spaces
- emetophobia, fear of vomiting
- kakorrhaphiaphobia, fear of failure
- mysophobia, a fear of dirt and germs
More phobias are listed in the (partially complete) List of Common Phobias.
Some psychiatrists use virtual reality to desensitize patients to the feared thing. Other forms of therapy that may be of benefit to phobics are graduated exposure therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Anti-anxiety medication can also be of assistance in some cases. Most phobics KNOW that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but they are powerless to override their initial panic reaction. Graduated Exposure and CBT both work towards the goal of desensitising the sufferer, and changing the thought patterns that are contributing to their panic. Gradual desensitisation treatment and CBT are often extremely successful, provided the phobic is willing to endure some discomfort and to make a continuous effort over a long period of time.
In some cases, a fear or hatred is not considered a phobia in the clinical sense because it is believed to be only a symptom of other psychic problems, or the result of ignorance. These are phobias in a more general, popular sense of the word:
- homophobia, fear of homosexual people
- xenophobia, fear of strangers or the unknown
Furthermore, the term hydrophobia, or fear of water, can not be a psychological condition at all, but another term for the disease rabies, referring to a common symptom.
See also angst, anxiety, disabilities