The word "phobia" has Greek roots - phobos - "fear". This is a condition in which a person experiences an excessive and unreasonable degree of panic. It is triggered by exposure to or expectation of a particular object or circumstance. So phobias are born.
What it is?
Psychologists define phobia as irrational uncontrollable fear. Therefore, it is practically impossible to logically explain their manifestation at one time or another. However, sometimes phobic anxiety disorder occurs due to irrational hostility and hatred of something. In this case, fear has a veiled form.
Of course, fear is an innate emotional process, a genetically determined physiological component. This sensation may be caused by imaginary or real dangers.
If you start treatment on time, in the first stages of the development of a phobia, it can be defeated. But since over time it is increasingly deposited in the human brain, it is difficult to "uproot" from there. It will take a lot of effort to recover from a phobia.
Psychology, fortunately, is struggling with this. According to statistics, clinical cases are currently not common. They say about such cases that fear begins to get out of control and impede normal life, turning into bouts of real panic.
Phobias differ from ordinary fears in their obsession, torment, and severity. The patient is not able to drive this state out of his mind, while the intellect remains untouched. Another sign is the patient's awareness that his fear is abnormal.
The birth of phobias
By itself, a phobia will never arise out of the blue. In most cases, it is the result of severe experience, long depression, stress, or as one of the components of a neurosis. That is, the causes of phobias are stress, emotional experience (hidden or not realized by a person). Z. Freud argued that a phobia appears due to suppression, crowding out the darkness of the subconscious of shame, guilt, a very difficult experience.
Most obsessive ideas, as well as phobias, are people who place their reason above the senses. For them, the most important thing is the ability to control the situation. Such people are primarily male businessmen or officials, since they have a huge responsibility for a long time. This prevents them from relaxing. They believe that in a stressful situation you can not experience strong emotional feelings. Due to the fact that such people try to keep everything under control, they begin to suffer from the betrayal of their own brain.
A phobia begins to develop more strongly from the moment when a person decides to organize his life without the object of his fear. In some cases, when the subject of anxiety is rarely found (snakes, for example), the patient’s life is calm. But the existing complex phobias are quite complex to be able to avoid them. These include, for example, agoraphobia (fear of leaving home and being in a public place), or as it is also called - social phobia (fear of being among people).
The main categories of phobias
- Specific, or simple phobias. What it is? This is a disproportionate sense of fear regarding specific situations, living things, activities, places and inanimate things. For example, dentophobia (fear of dentists), kinophobia (fear of dogs), aviophobia (fear of flying), ornithophobia (fear of birds).
- Social phobias. What is it, you will now find out. They are also called social anxiety disorder. Fear is a complex or complex phobia that has deep roots. A patient suffering from this type of ailment encounters difficulties while in a social setting. Quite often it is very difficult for him to find himself and be among people. Attending parties, weddings, exhibitions, he is very anxious. A person is tormented by fear of embarrassment, condemnation and public humiliation, for example, with the mere thought of speaking to a large number of people, he panics. Starting in adolescence, an individual tries to avoid such social situations. Over time, depression may begin to develop.
- Agoraphobia is a fear of being in a situation that has no way out, that is, a person is afraid to get stuck in a desperate situation and not get help. These include the fear of traveling by bus or train, the fear of visiting large shops. In some particularly severe cases, an individual is not able to leave his own home. Agoraphobia includes complex, complex phobias.
List of the most common phobias
There are a large number of their species, many of which are subclassed. The following are the most common phobias. What it is is also explained.
Today, the most common is eremophobia - the fear of loneliness. But this applies to those people who are afraid to be alone with themselves.
Aviophobia
Aviophobia is equally common. People suffering from this disease are afraid of flights. Their condition is compounded by the fact that any plane crash is very brightly covered in the press. In addition, the fear of flights can also lie in other fears, such as claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces) and acrophobia (fear of heights). A person suffering from airphobia can be advised one thing: try to distract from thoughts of fear (listen to music, read a book, watch a movie, etc.).
Peyraphobia and glossophobia
A fairly common ailment in the modern world is the fear of public speaking. This is the deepest fear of all mankind. Each of us is afraid to seem ridiculous, stupid, incompetent or ridiculous.
Of course, before the performance, absolutely everyone is nervous - from the teacher to the politician. The only thing that can teach you to overcome this fear is frequent appearances in crowded companies. If it’s extremely difficult for a person to begin to struggle with his fear, then it is better for him to work with an experienced psychologist who will teach specifically the practice of communication.
Acrophobia
Acrophobia is a fear of heights. In most cases, it is rather a fear of falling. The individual simply avoids the subject of a phobia - one must not climb to high points. In an extreme case, distracted from the fact of being at a height.
Nictophobia
The phobia of darkness has been familiar to everyone since childhood, but not everyone can cope with it over time. For adults, this is the most irrational fear. You can try to get rid of it by asking yourself the question of what exactly scares in the dark.
Thanatophobia
Thanatophobia - fear of death - has a serious impact on many people. Its variety is necrophobia - a fear of corpses. Many mistakenly believe that this ailment also includes fear of cemeteries. But this fear has a different name - coimetrophobia. Necrophobia is a fear that is difficult to overcome. It should be understood that life is a cycle that includes death. It is important to realize that there will always be people who remember you.
Atichiphobia
The fear of making a mistake or failing haunts even successful people. This can even trigger the emergence of other common fears (failure, change, what people think). Therefore, it is necessary to stop thinking about what may or may not happen, and think positively.
Rectophobia
Fear of refusal is a very strong and irresistible fear. Quite often, under it lies the desire to be accepted or loved. A person needs to make sure that someone needs him and will not be abandoned.
Arachnophobia
A fairly well-known fear is the fear of spiders. He has no reasons and prerequisites for the appearance. This irrational fear simply arises and sometimes even annoys a person suffering from it. Some people decide to overcome it in the following way. They spend a long time in the area or country where spiders are very common and are represented by many species and sizes.
Phobophobia
Many often jokingly raise the question of whether the fear of phobias is called. It turns out that there is such a fear - phobophobia - the fear of starting to be afraid of something. A rather unusual phenomenon occurs in those who in the past fell into a stressful situation. Its reappearance in the future scares a person, and especially those feelings that he suffered. Phobophobia feeds itself, fear begins to get out of control and exhausts.
Claustrophobia
Fear of confined space is a very disturbing disorder. A person suffering from claustrophobia describes this as a sensation of a trap without entry and exit. It usually manifests emotionally and physically. What causes this phobia is still not known exactly . It begins to develop in adolescence and often passes to adulthood or becomes less pronounced.
However, not all fears fall under the definition of the term "phobias." The list of the most common is constantly updated, updated and expanded.
Symptoms of Phobias
Typical signs of a panic attack are:
- fast heartbeat;
- chest pain
- interruptions in the work of the heart, arrhythmia may occur;
- sweating
- shortness of breath or rapid breathing;
- disorders of the vestibular apparatus;
- there is a sensation of a coma in the throat, squeezing;
- dizziness or fainting;
- darkening in the eyes, "flies";
- weakness throughout the body;
- muscles are tightly compressed, to pain (mainly shoulders, stomach, neck, throat);
- muscle cramps in the arms and legs;
- chills;
- numbness of certain parts of the body;
- shiver;
- nausea, vomiting, diarrhea;
- suffocation;
- lack of air;
- feeling of horror, panic, fear.
It is not necessary that all symptoms be present. A person suffering from any kind of phobia already knows about what to expect in the next panic attack.