A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder.
It is a strong irrational fear of something that poses little or no real danger.
There are many specific phobias. Acrophobia is a fear of heights, Agoraphobia is a fear of public places and Claustrophobia is a fear of closed in places.
If you become anxious and extremely self-conscious in everyday social situations you could have a 'Social phobia'.
Other common phobias involve tunnels, highway, driving, water, flying, animals and blood.
People with phobias try to avoid what they are afraid of. If they cannot they may experience panic and fear, rabbit heartbeat, shortness of breath and trembling a strong desire to get away.
Phobias usually start in children or teens and continue into adulthood.
The causes of specific phobias are known but they sometimes run in families.
Treatment helps most people with phobias. Options include medicines, therapy or both.
Evolution has built us to avoid fear, and it's so strong. People who are paralyzed by trauma may change their entire social structure to avoid triggering their Amygdala.
One way to get over a fear is called, "Exposure Therapy," where psychotherapists use relaxation techniques combined with desensitization to help people curb and control their fears.
It's a tricky business, specialists have to balance the exposure with the relaxation techniques, using classical conditioning to retrain the patient's limbic system.
Specialists will work to explore the fear and desensitize one little bit at a time.
So, If someone suffers from panic attacks, psychologists might ask a patient run to get their heart rate up, So they don't fear the pounding in their chest.
It's pretty intense stuff!
Of course, fear of spiders, heights, lakes are all pretty easy to practice with exposure therapy.
Over time, when paired with relaxation training, your amygdala will tone down the panic, and patients are able to actually overcome the fear!
Virtual Reality Exposure, can put people in controlled situations that help desensitize bits of a bad experience in a safe environment. Rather than putting someone who is afraid of flying on an airplane, they could be put in a VR headset.
Technology to the rescue!
According to an NIH study in Journal of Clinical Psychology, even after six sessions, patients reported decreased feelings of psychological distress and PTSD symptoms.
Today it would make sense to be able to shut off this fear-based ancient brain, But we're not there yet.
Instead, we have to learn to overcome our fears and live courageously.
Luckily, Science is working on it.
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