Phobia

See also -phob-, which discusses non-clinical uses of the suffix "-phobia". See Phobia (album) for the Breaking Benjamin album.

A phobia (from the Greek φόβος "fear"), is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.

Prevalence

Phobias (in the clinical meaning of the term) are the most common form of anxiety disorders. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 8.7% and 18.1% of Americans suffer from phobias. Broken down by age and gender, the study found that phobias were the most common mental illness among women in all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25.

Other uses of term

Phobia is also used in a non-medical sense for aversions of all sorts. These terms are usually constructed with the suffix -phobia. A number of these terms describe negative attitudes or prejudices towards the named subjects. See Non-clinical uses of the term below.

Clinical phobias

Most psychologists and psychiatrists classify most phobias into three categories: [1] [2]

• Social phobias – fears involving other people or social situations such as performance anxiety or fears of embarrassment by scrutiny of others, such as eating in public. The symptoms may extend to psychosomatic manifestation of physical problems. For example, sufferers of paruresis find it difficult or impossible to urinate in reduced levels of privacy. That goes beyond mere preference. If the condition triggers, the person physically cannot empty their bladder.
• Specific phobias – fear of a single specific panic trigger such as spiders, dogs, elevators, water, flying, catching a specific illness, etc.
• Agoraphobia – a generalized fear of leaving home or a small familiar 'safe' area, and of the inevitable panic attacks that will follow. Agoraphobia is the only phobia regularly treated as a medical condition.

In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), social phobia, specific phobia, and agoraphobia are sub-groups of anxiety disorder.

Many of the specific phobias, such as fear of dogs, heights, spider bites and so forth, are extensions of fears that a lot of people have. People with these phobias specifically avoid the entity they fear.

Many specific 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. Some individuals can simply avoid the subject of their fear and suffer only relatively mild anxiety over that fear. Others suffer fully-fledged panic attacks with all the associated disabling symptoms. Most individuals understand that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but are powerless to override their initial panic reaction.

Treatment

Some therapists use virtual reality or imagery exercise to desensitize patients to the feared entity. These are parts of systematic desensitization therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial. Cognitive behavioral therapy lets the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns. CBT may be conducted in a group setting. Gradual desensitization treatment and CBT are often successful, provided the patient is willing to endure some discomfort and to make a continuous effort over a long period of time.

Anti-anxiety or anti-depression medications can be of assistance in many cases. Benzodiazepines could be prescribed for short-term use.

These treatment options are not mutually exclusive. Often a therapist will suggest multiple treatments.

Non-psychological conditions

The term hydrophobia, or fear of water, is usually not a psychological condition at all, but another term for the disease rabies, referring to a common symptom. Likewise, photophobia is a physical complaint. Aversion to light due to inflamed eyes or excessively dilated pupils does not necessarily indicate photophobia.

Non-clinical uses of the term

It is possible for an individual to develop a phobia over virtually anything. The name of a phobia generally contains a Greek word for what the patient fears plus the suffix -phobia. Creating these terms is somewhat of a word game. Few of these terms are found in medical literature. However, this does not necessarily make it a nonpsychological condition.

Terms indicating prejudice or class discrimination

A number of terms with the suffix -phobia are primarily understood as negative attitudes towards certain categories of people or other things, used in an analogy with the medical usage of the term. Usually these kinds of "phobias" are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination, or hostility towards the object of the "phobia". Often this attitude is based on prejudices and is a particular case of general xenophobia.

Class discrimination is not always considered a phobia in the clinical sense because it is believed to be only a symptom of other psychological issues, or the result of ignorance, or of political or social beliefs. In other words, unlike clinical phobias, which are usually qualified with disabling fear, class discrimination usually have roots in social relations.

The main difference between a fear and a phobia is that a fear is something a person is afraid of and can handle being around it without fainting or having panic attacks. A fear becomes a phobia when it starts to interfere with one's life. An example is if a person was walking on one side of a street and this person has homophobia (the fear of homosexuals) and a homosexual couple is coming up. If that person goes to the other side of the street to avoid them even if their destination is just few feet behind the couple, their fear of homosexuals is now a phobia because it interfered with that person's daily life.

Below are some examples:

• Islamophobia, fear or dislike of Muslims
• Homophobia, dislike of homosexual people.
• Transphobia, fear or dislike of transgender or transsexual people.
• Xenophobia, fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, often used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements
• Ephebophobia, irrational fear of adolescents gaining more rights or showing behavioral, emotional or social emancipation

See also List of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms.

Other uses of term

Phobia is also used in a non-medical sense for aversions of all sorts. These terms are usually constructed with the suffix -phobia. A number of these terms describe negative attitudes or prejudices towards the named subjects. See Non-clinical uses of the term below.

See also

• Angst
• Anxiety
• Anxiety disorder
• Disabilities
• Fear
• Panic
• Panic attack
• -phob- (List)

External links

• Diagnostic criteria for social phobia in the DSM-IV
• Diagnostic criteria for specific phobia in the DSM-IV
• List of anxiety disorders in the DSM-IV, which includes several agoraphobic disorders.
• National Phobics Society
• The Phobia List Unofficial list with phobias and their technical names.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Lynne L. Hall, Fighting Phobias, the Things That Go Bump in the Mind, FDA Consumer Magazine, Volume 31 No. 2, March 1997 [3]

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