Phobia

What is Phobia?
Phobia is a persistent, excessive and irrational fear of a specific situation, activity or object involving the feeling and thought of being harm that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

Phobia is a sense of endangerment to oneself.

Phobias are the most common disorder affecting more than 10% of people in America. More women are affected by phobias than men.

In most cases, people are able to recognize that their fear is irrational and therefore take steps to overcome their phobia.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders report, only about 10 percent of recorded cases become life-long phobia.

Symptoms of Phobia
When you are in a fear situation or by simply thinking about it will lead you to a response.

This response is symptoms associated with Phobia. These common symptoms are,

• Dizziness

• Breathlessness

• Nausea

• Sweating

• Trembling

• Fear of dying

In some severe cases, these symptoms escalate into a full scale anxiety attack and the result of which you begin to isolate yourself, disrupting your normal daily life.

When you reached this stage of constant concern with imagined illnesses or imminent death immediately seek medical help and professional advice.

Types of Phobia
There are three types of phobia,

1.Social phobias
Fear of social situations.

2.Agoraphobia
Fear of being trapped in an inescapable place or situation.

3.Specific phobias
Fear of a specific object (such as snakes or spiders).

And there are four types of specific phobias,

1.Natural environment
Fear of lightening, water, storms, etc.

2.Animal
Fear of snakes, rodents, spiders, etc.

3.Medical
Fear of seeing blood, receiving injections, visiting a doctor, etc.

4.Situational
Fear of bridges, leaving home, driving, etc.

When to seek treatment?

• When phobia causes intense and disabling fear, anxiety and panic.

• When you recognize that your fear is excessive and unreasonable.

• When you avoid certain situations and places because of your phobia.

• When your avoidance interferes with your normal routine or causes significant distress.

• When you have the phobia for the last six months.

Treatments for Phobias
There are several methods of treatment for phobias.

The effectiveness of a treatment will depend on you and the types of phobia have.

Exposure Treatment
You will be exposed gradually and repeatedly to your fear situation.

Confronting with your fear object for an extended length of time without the opportunity to escape will help you to overcome your fear.

The goal of this method is to help you face your fear and realize that the fear object will not harm you.

Counter Conditioning
In this method, you will be taught how to response to the fear situation positively.

You will learn relaxation techniques to replace anxiety and fear or panic in the face of your feared situation, gradually your phobic response fades.

Counter-conditioning is used when you are not able to handle exposure treatments.

Challenge Negative Thought
Learning to challenge unhelpful negative thoughts. It is an important step to overcome your phobia.

When you are in a fear situation, your negative thought tend to influence you on how badly you will be affected if you are exposed to this situation you fear.

At the same time, you underestimate your ability to response and cope.

The anxious thoughts that trigger and fuel phobias are usually unrealistic.

Start by writing down any negative thoughts you have when confronted with your phobia