What is a phobia, fear or phobia? Types, symptoms, treatment.

Fear is a very unpleasant, in many ways painful emotion, but no one would dispute its usefulness. Fear may have originated together with life on Earth, and its main task is to preserve the life of an individual.

I must say, he's doing a pretty good job of it. But there are cases when fear turns from a helper into an enemy. What to do if this happens to you? What to do if fear paralyzes the body and puts the mind in a stupor at the moment when on the contrary you need mobility and clarity of mind? What to do if you awaken fear of things or phenomena that do not carry a threat? In general - how to distinguish obsessive fear, phobia from normal, healthy human fear?

Key differences between fear and phobia

Fear has many faces. The most familiar is fear. It is a background emotion, almost insensible in the usual environment, but growing into fear when approaching the object of fear. These objects are things or phenomena that are threatening: heights, fire, large or aggressive animals, disease, etc.

In essence, fear is a natural state of mind to anything that could jeopardize your life or health.

When approaching or interacting with a threatening object, fear turns into fear, a strong emotion that has a tremendous impact on the entire body, from mental state to changes in blood composition and internal organs.

Fear is an emotion that sets the body up for one response to danger: fight or flight.

In both cases, maximum body tension and full readiness to act without thinking, to react instantly are required. In case of danger, fear is also a normal human reaction.

However, fear and apprehension often develop into pathological forms: phobias.

A phobia is characterized by the manifestation of signs of fear in relation to an object, not life-threatening and health.

They are often neutral objects or phenomena not noticed by ordinary people.

Phobia is a severe obsessive compulsive condition that exhausts both the psyche and the human body.

Therefore. phobias must be treated under the guidance of an experienced therapist.

What types of phobias are there

The object of a phobia can theoretically be any object or phenomenon. But there are several common types of obsessive compulsive fear that affect people most often:

Animal phobias - Fear of certain kinds of animals (dogs, spiders, insects, snakes);

Environmental phobias - fear of natural phenomena or features of the environment (fear of open or closed spaces, fear of heights, water, fire, thunderstorms);

Phobias of certain situations (e.g., fear of doctors, airplane travel, trains, elevators, reprimand from superiors, getting fired);

Phobias of deathThe fear of blood, illness and trauma (e.g., fear of blood).

How do you distinguish between a normal fear and a phobia?

The first and main feature of obsessive compulsive fear - its excessiveness, its inadequacy.

For example, a person with a fear of spiders may experience fear at the mere sight of an image of a spider (e.g., an illustration in a book). In some cases, symptoms of pathological fear are triggered by even thinking about the object of the phobia.

The second sign - fear redundancy

This has an extremely negative effect on the entire body. For example, muscle tension reaches such a high intensity that the body feels paralyzed, shortness of breath, nausea, and dizziness appear. In this case, fear becomes not a means of mobilizing the body, but its destroyer. The situation is aggravated by the fact that with the object or phenomenon that caused the phobia, a person meets often enough. Because of this, the body is in a state of permanent stress, and the person feels constant anxiety, which prevents a normal, full life.

How do you treat a phobia?

There are many methods of treatment, but they all have one principle in common:

to make the person become more familiar with the object of the phobia, to get used to it.

So be prepared - none of the treatments will be comfortable. In a normal situation, you tend to avoid things that cause an attack of fear. This is a natural reaction, but in this case it only exacerbates the phobia. To cure this fear, you need to do the exact opposite - get closer to the object of the phobia. Ideally, it is better to face this object or phenomenon every day, gradually getting used to it. This, on the one hand, dulls the fear, and on the other hand - helps to get more familiar, to study what causes panic. Through this learning, you can discover new sides to what scares you so much, and it won't be so scary anymore. The better you get to know something, the less fear you feel about it.

In addition, it is difficult to get rid of a phobia without a psychologist, because a psychologist you need to figure out what's causing the phobia. As a rule, it is a negative experience of interaction with the object of fear in childhood, suppressed, living in the subconscious. It is necessary to remember, to relive this experience, while at the same time looking at the situation from a different perspective. This will also not be comfortable, because such memories are usually very painful. However, bringing them back into consciousness and "neutralizing" them is a necessary stage of treatment.

Fear - a normal human reaction to danger.

Phobia - A pathological condition in which fear arises in the face of something that is not dangerous.

But turning an enemy into a friend is possible!

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the difference between a fear and a phobia?
   Fear is a natural reaction to a real threat. Phobia is an irrational, excessive fear of safe objects or situations.
2. What are the different types of phobias?
   Specific (spiders, heights), social (evaluation of others), agoraphobia (open spaces).
3. What are the symptoms of phobias?
   Sweating, palpitations, nausea, dizziness, trembling, panic, desire to avoid frightening things.
4. Why do phobias arise?
   Causes: trauma, heredity, anxiety, hyper-parenting, stress, low self-esteem.
5. How are phobias treated?
   CPT, exposure therapy, medication, breathing practices, relaxation techniques.