Phobias

A phobia ( from the Greek for "fear") is a persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation. People with a phobia become fearful if they even think about the object or situation they dread, but they usually remain comfortable as long as they avoid the object or thoughts about it. Most are well aware that their fear are excessive and unreasonable. Some have no idea how their fear started.
We all have are areas of special fear, and it is normal for some things to upset us more than other things. So how do these common fears differ from phobias?

Symptoms:
DSM- IV indicates that a phobia is more intense and persistent and the desire to avoid the object or situation is greater than in common fears. People with phobia feel such distress that their fear may interfere dramatically with their personal, social, or occupational lives.

Incidents of disorder:
Surveys suggest that 14% of adults in the United States develop a phobia at some point in their lives.

Age of disorder emergence:
The disorder may emerge at any age, but usually it first appears in childhood or adolescence.

Gender Differences in Diagnosis:
The disorder is more than twice as common in women as in men.


Although there are many kinds of phobias, most phobias fall under the category of specific phobias, social phibias and agoraphobia.
Specific Phobias:
DSM IV's lable for a marked and persistent fear of a specific object or situation.
Social Phobia:
A fear of social or performance situations in which embarassement may occure.
Agoraphobia:
A fear of venturing into public places, especially when one is alone. Agoraphobia is usually, perhaps always, experienced in conjunction with panic attacks ( unpredictable attacks of terror).

Causes of Phobia:

• Classical conditioning: A process of learning in which two events that repeatedly occure closely together in time become tied together in a person's mind and so produce the same response.
• Modeling: A process of learning in which a person observes and then imitates others.
• Stimulus generalization: A phenomenon in wich responses to one stimulus are also produced by similar stimuli

Treatment:
Biological View:
Biological theorists believe that abnormal norepinephrine activity in the brain's locus ceruleus is the key to panic disorders. These therapists use certain antidepressant drugs or powerful benzodiazpines to treat people with this disorder. Patients whose panic disorder is accompanied by agoraphobia may need a combination of drug therapy and behavioral exposure therapy.
Cognitve View:
These theorists suggest that panic- prone people become preoccupied with some of their bodily sensations, misinterpret them as signs of medical catastrophe, panic, and in some cases develop panic disorder. Cognitive therapists teach patients to interpret their physical sensations more accurately and to cope better with anxiety.
Behavioral View:
These theorists believe that the phobia is a result of a learned experienced and can be unlearned through exposure therapy and gradual systematic desensetization to the object or situation of dread.

Also see the list of all phobias.