Phobias

Fifty yards away, you see the animal approaching. It watches you, silently, as it sneaks closer and closer with each padded step. You try and stay calm, as you tell yourself there's nothing to fear. Panic takes you over in a powerful grip. Your heart starts pumping and your palms begin to sweat. What is the dangerous animal making you hyperventilate? Is it a tiger hungry for a meal or a lioness protecting her cubs? It is your neighbor's cat, wandering your way. If you are one of the thousands that suffer from galeophobia, the fear of cats, or any of the hundreds of other phobias, panics at the appearance of everyday objects, situations, or feelings are a regular occurrence.

A phobia is an abnormal, persistent, irrational fear or dread that causes a state of panic. An estimated eighteen percent of the United States adult population suffers from some kind of phobia. A person has the ability to make a phobia of anything: elevators, clocks, mushrooms, closed spaces, and open spaces. Exposure to the fear causes rapid breathing, pounding heartbeat, and sweaty palms of panic.

Fifty million Americans suffer from irrational fears of worries, and an additional thirteen million have related disorders. Some experts consider anxiety disorders the most common mental-health problem today. Anxiety is the fifth most common medical or psychiatric diagnosis, and it accounted for eleven percent of all visits to medical doctors. In the past ten years, the medications most frequently prescribed in the United States have been anti-anxiety drugs.

It is not uncommon for people to have irrational fears of specific situations or things that they can usually avoid. For instance, if you had a mild fear of snakes, you would not want to sit in the meadow nor visit the snake house at the zoo. In other words, your slight fear of snakes would not restrict your life. Suppose that you became so fearful and apprehensive at the thought of encountering a snake that you could not even walk down a country road or go anywhere near a zoo. This reaction would qualify as a phobia, since it causes considerable anxiety and interferes with your life.

There are three types of phobias: specific or simple phobias, social phobias, and agoraphobia. Simple phobias are the fear of an object or situation, like spiders, heights, or flying. Social phobias are the fear of embarrassment or humiliation in public. Agoraphobia is the fear of being away from a safe place.

There is no specific cause or reason how a phobia can develop. In several situations, a person can identify an event or trauma, like being chased by a dog that caused the phobia. Why some people who experience such an event develop a phobia and others do not puzzles experts. Psychologists think the cause is in a combination of genetic predisposition mixed with environmental and social causes.

Phobic disorders are classified as part of the group of anxiety disorders, which includes panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Several drugs related by the Food and Drug Administration is now being used to treat phobias and other anxiety disorders.

A person can develop a phobia of anything, but the phobia is shared by several and has a name. Animal phobias: cynophobia (dogs), equinophobia (horses), and zoophobia (all animals), are common. Arachnophobia (spiders) and ophidiophobia (snakes) are also common fears. Also, there's the fear of flying (pterygophobia), heights (acrophobia), and confined spaces (claustrophobia).

"One of the most common phobias is the fear of dentists," says Sheryl Jackson, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "People who suffer with this phobia will literally let their teeth rot out because they are afraid to go to a dentist."

Sheryl Jackson says that the most specific phobias do not cause a serious disruption in a person's life, and, sufferers do not seek professional help. Instead, they find ways to stay away from what starts it or they take in the misery felt. Someone may ask their physician, requesting medications to help them through a situation, like an unavoidable plane trip for a person who is phobic about flying.

Phobias cause important problems that need long-term professional help. "People usually seek treatment when their phobia interferes in their lives, the person who turns down promotions because he knows public speaking will be required, someone who must travel frequently but who has a fear of pain or blood. These are the people who seek long-term treatment," says Sheryl Jackson.

Anti-anxiety medication may be used initially, but systematic desensitization may also be a good way to begin. The non-drug treatment works on the theory that the more a person is exposed to the object of his phobia, the less fear that objects produces.

First, the patient and therapist create a hierarchy of feared situations, from the least feared to the most feared. For someone who fears elevators, for example, stepping onto the elevator causes a certain level of anxiety; going up one flight causes another level of anxiety. With each additional flight the anxiety increases until it becomes unbearable.

Therapy begins with the patient and therapist practicing the least fearful event, driving out the anxiety until the physiological symptoms drop. This step is repeated until the anxiety level is suitable. Then the person moves forward to the next step in the hierarchy. Each succeeding step is repeated until the physical reactions and anxious mood decrease to the point where the person can step onto an elevator and ride to the top floor without panicking.

Social phobia is a difficult disorder, described by the fear of being of being criticized or humiliated in public situations. There are two kinds of social phobias: circumscribed, which relates to a specific situation like "stage fright" and generalized social phobia, which involves fear of a variety of social situations.

People who suffer from social phobia fear the scrutiny of others. They are highly sensitive to criticism, and interpret the actions of others as an attempt to humiliate them. They are afraid to engage in conversations for saying something