Is phobia a mental illness

Phobias - What is Mental Illness? - UTHealth Houston Harris County Psychiatric Center - UT Harris County Psychiatric Center

Types of Phobias • Signs & Symptoms • Treatments

Fear is a natural reaction to danger. But when your fears are so great that they disrupt your daily life, you probably suffer from a phobia. Phobias can cause overwhelming fear of animals, objects or social situations, or the complete inability to deal with a given situation, for no apparent reason. Sometimes phobias can cause fear so intense it totally disables its victims.
Phobias are among the most common of all mental illnesses, and they are usually the most successfully treated.

Types of Phobias

Phobias are divided into categories according to the cause of the reaction and avoidance.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the fear of being in situations in which a person cannot get help or escape. Often this involves a fear of crossing or being in open or public places, particularly if they tend to be crowded. Some examples include stores, churches, elevators or just a busy street.

People with agoraphobia usually avoid the situations they fear, sometimes to the extent that they do not leave their own house except when accompanied by a family member or friend, if they leave at all. This disorder can be highly detrimental to normal day-to-day activities.

Social Phobia

Social phobias cause people to dread being watched or humiliated while doing something of a social nature. But it's much more than "butterflies" in the stomach or simple tension. Social phobias are irrational fears, and people with the disorder usually avoid the situations they fear.

The most common social phobia is the fear of being in front of people, as in a speech or performance. But sometimes the most normal or routine activities - eating a meal, writing a check, even sexual relations - can be a source of fear. Generally, agoraphobics fear and usually try to avoid situations of interpersonal interactions. Like other anxiety disorders, agoraphobia can be highly disabling.

Specific Phobia

Specific phobias typically are fears of particular objects or situations. The most common simple phobia is the fear of animals, like dogs, snakes, mice and insects. Other common specific phobias are fears of heights, fears of flying and fears of enclosed spaces.

Most specific phobias develop at childhood but eventually go away on their own, like a fear of the dark. If a phobia continues into adulthood, treatment is usually the only solution. Like other phobias, specific phobias can keep people from normal lives. But the level of disability is usually determined by how often the object of the phobia appears in a victim's life.

Signs and Symptoms

People who suffer from phobias may display one or more of the following symptoms:

Unrealistic or excessive worry, dread or terror involving an object or situation that is otherwise harmless
A complete and uncontrollable preoccupation with the fear and the object of the fear

Typical physical reactions to fear: racing heartbeat, sweating, shortness of breath, shaking
An overwhelming urge to flee the situation

People with phobias are usually aware that their fears are unwarranted, but they generally will flee from and go to great lengths to avoid the object of their fears. When these behaviors interfere with daily life, the person should seek treatment.

Treatments

Behavioral therapies are the most effective and among the most widely used in treating phobias, particularly specific phobias. They focus on changing specific actions and use several techniques to stop negative behavior. One technique - exposure therapy - involves exposing the patient to the feared object or situation on either a gradual or direct basis, depending on the therapy. By confronting the objects of fear, patients become desensitized to them, and the phobic reactions are reduced or eliminated.

In treating social phobia and agoraphobia, physicians may use cognitive-behavioral therapy. In addition to confronting their fears, patients learn to understand how their thinking patterns contribute to their symptoms and how to change their thoughts to reduce or prevent the symptoms.

Medications are typically part of treatments for social phobia and agoraphobia. Anti anxiety medications can reduce panic or anxiety in patients, allowing them to confront their phobic situations.

Most patients respond well to treatment, and the success rates among those who receive treatment are usually very high, allowing patients to return to productive, fulfilling lives.

Symptoms, types, causes, and treatment

A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder that causes an individual to experience extreme, irrational fear about a situation, living creature, place, or object.

When a person has a phobia, they will often shape their lives to avoid what they consider to be dangerous. The imagined threat is greater than any actual threat posed by the cause of terror.

Phobias are diagnosable mental disorders.

The person will experience intense distress when faced with the source of their phobia. This can prevent them from functioning normally and sometimes leads to panic attacks.

In the United States, approximately 19 million people have phobias.

A phobia is an exaggerated and irrational fear.

The term ‘phobia’ is often used to refer to a fear of one particular trigger. However, there are three types of phobia recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). These include:

Specific phobia: This is an intense, irrational fear of a specific trigger.

Social phobia, or social anxiety: This is a profound fear of public humiliation and being singled out or judged by others in a social situation. The idea of large social gatherings is terrifying for someone with social anxiety. It is not the same as shyness.

Agoraphobia: This is a fear of situations from which it would be difficult to escape if a person were to experience extreme panic, such being in a lift or being outside of the home. It is commonly misunderstood as a fear of open spaces but could also apply to being confined in a small space, such as an elevator, or being on public transport. People with agoraphobia have an increased risk of panic disorder.

Specific phobias are known as simple phobias as they can be linked to an identifiable cause that may not frequently occur in the everyday life of an individual, such as snakes. These are therefore not likely to affect day-to-day living in a significant way.

Social anxiety and agoraphobia are known as complex phobias, as their triggers are less easily recognized. People with complex phobias can also find it harder to avoid triggers, such as leaving the house or being in a large crowd.

A phobia becomes diagnosable when a person begins organizing their lives around avoiding the cause of their fear. It is more severe than a normal fear reaction. People with a phobia have an overpowering need to avoid anything that triggers their anxiety.

A person with a phobia will experience the following symptoms. They are common across the majority of phobias:

a sensation of uncontrollable anxiety when exposed to the source of fear
a feeling that the source of that fear must be avoided at all costs
not being able to function properly when exposed to the trigger
acknowledgment that the fear is irrational, unreasonable, and exaggerated, combined with an inability to control the feelings

A person is likely to experience feelings of panic and intense anxiety when exposed to the object of their phobia. The physical effects of these sensations can include:

sweating
abnormal breathing
accelerated heartbeat
trembling
hot flushes or chills
a choking sensation
chest pains or tightness
butterflies in the stomach
pins and needles
dry mouth
confusion and disorientation
nausea
dizziness
headache

A feeling of anxiety can be produced simply by thinking about the object of the phobia. In younger children, parents may observe that they cry, become very clingy, or attempt to hide behind the legs of a parent or an object. They may also throw tantrums to show their distress.

Complex phobias

A complex phobia is much more likely to affect a person’s wellbeing than a specific phobia.

For example, those who experience agoraphobia may also have a number of other phobias that are connected. These can include monophobia, or a fear of being left alone, and claustrophobia, a fear of feeling trapped in closed spaces.

In severe cases, a person with agoraphobia will rarely leave their home.

The most common specific phobias in the U.S. include:

Claustrophobia: Fear of being in constricted, confined spaces
Aerophobia: Fear of flying
Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders
Driving phobia: Fear of driving a car
Emetophobia: Fear of vomiting
Erythrophobia: Fear of blushing
Hypochondria: Fear of becoming ill
Zoophobia: Fear of animals
Aquaphobia: Fear of water
Acrophobia: Fear of heights
Blood, injury, and injection (BII) phobia: Fear of injuries involving blood
Escalaphobia: Fear of escalators
Tunnel phobia: Fear of tunnels

These are far from the only specific phobias. People can develop a phobia of almost anything. Also, as society changes, the list of potential phobias changes. For instance, nomophobia is the fear of being without a cell phone or computer.

As described in one paper, it is “the pathologic fear of remaining out of touch with technology.”

It is unusual for a phobia to start after the age of 30 years, and most begin during early childhood, the teenage years, or early adulthood.

They can be caused by a stressful experience, a frightening event, or a parent or household member with a phobia that a child can ‘learn.’

Specific phobias

These usually develop before the age of 4 to 8 years. In some cases, it may be the result of a traumatic early experience. One example would be claustrophobia developing over time after a younger child has an unpleasant experience in a confined space.

Phobias that start during childhood can also be caused by witnessing the phobia of a family member. A child whose mother has arachnophobia, for example, is much more likely to develop the same phobia.

Complex phobias

More research is needed to confirm exactly why a person develops agoraphobia or social anxiety. Researchers currently believe complex phobias are caused by a combination of life experiences, brain chemistry, and genetics.

They may also be an echo of the habits of early humans, leftover from a time in which open spaces and unknown people generally posed a far greater threat to personal safety than in today’s world.

How the brain works during a phobia

Some areas of the brain store and recall dangerous or potentially deadly events.

If a person faces a similar event later on in life, those areas of the brain retrieve the stressful memory, sometimes more than once. This causes the body to experience the same reaction.

In a phobia, the areas of the brain that deal with fear and stress keep retrieving the frightening event inappropriately.

Researchers have found that phobias are often linked to the amygdala, which lies behind the pituitary gland in the brain. The amygdala can trigger the release of “fight-or-flight” hormones. These put the body and mind in a highly alert and stressed state.

Phobias are highly treatable, and people who have them are nearly always aware of their disorder. This helps diagnosis a great deal.

Speaking to a psychologist or psychiatrist is a useful first step in treating a phobia that has already been identified.

If the phobia does not cause severe problems, most people find that simply avoiding the source of their fear helps them stay in control. Many people with specific phobias will not seek treatment as these fears are often manageable.

It is not possible to avoid the triggers of some phobias, as is often the case with complex phobias. In these cases, speaking to a mental health professional can be the first step to recovery.

Most phobias can be cured with appropriate treatment. There is no single treatment that works for every person with a phobia. Treatment needs to be tailored to the individual for it to work.

The doctor, psychiatrist, or psychologist may recommend behavioral therapy, medications, or a combination of both. Therapy is aimed at reducing fear and anxiety symptoms and helping people manage their reactions to the object of their phobia.

Medications

The following medications are effective for the treatment of phobias.

Beta blockers

These can help reduce the physical signs of anxiety that can accompany a phobia.

Side effects may include an upset stomach, fatigue, insomnia, and cold fingers.

Antidepressants

Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed for people with phobias. They affect serotonin levels in the brain, and this can result in better moods.

SSRIs may initially cause nausea, sleeping problems, and headaches.

If the SSRI does not work, the doctor may prescribe a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) for social phobia. Individuals on an MAOI may have to avoid certain types of food. Side effects may initially include dizziness, an upset stomach, restlessness, headaches, and insomnia.

Taking a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA), such as clomipramine, or Anafranil, has also been found to help phobia symptoms. Initial side effects can include sleepiness, blurred vision, constipation, urination difficulties, irregular heartbeat, dry mouth, and tremors.

Tranquilizers

Benzodiazepines are an example of a tranquilizer that might be prescribed for a phobia. These may help reduce anxiety symptoms. People with a history of alcohol dependence should not be given sedatives.

In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) strengthened their warning about benzodiazepines. Using these drugs can lead to physical dependence, and withdrawal can be life threatening. Combining them with alcohol, opioids, and other substances can result in death. It is essential to follow the doctor’s instructions when using these drugs.

Behavioral therapy

There are a number of therapeutic options for treating a phobia.

Desensitization, or exposure therapy

This can help people with a phobia alter their response to the source of fear. They are gradually exposed to the cause of their phobia over a series of escalating steps. For example, a person with aerophobia, or a fear of flying on a plane, may take the following steps under guidance:

They will first think about flying.
The therapist will have them look at pictures of planes.
The person will go to an airport.
They will escalate further by sitting in a practice simulated airplane cabin.
Finally, they will board a plane.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

The doctor, therapist, or counselor helps the person with a phobia learn different ways of understanding and reacting to the source of their phobia. This can make coping easier. Most importantly, CBT can teach a person experiencing phobia to control their own feelings and thoughts.

Phobias can be a source of genuine and ongoing distress for an individual. However, they are treatable in most cases, and very often the source of fear is avoidable.

If you have a phobia, the one thing you should never be afraid of is seeking help. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) offer a useful resource for locating a therapist. They also offer a range of talks on how to overcome specific phobias.

Phobic disorder - Psychiatric Clinical Hospital No. 4 named after. PB Gannushkina

Phobia - from the Greek word fear, fear. In psychiatry, phobic disorders are those associated with the experience of fear in relation to any objects, movements, actions, actions, situations, and even people; The content of a phobia can be any phenomenon of everyday life.

Not all fears are phobias

However, not in all cases, the presence of fear can be attributed to a phobia and a mental disorder. For example, if you are afraid to drive a car or afraid to speak in public, then this is not always necessarily a phobia. Such fears may be associated with a sense of self-doubt, lack of skills, or personality traits in the form of generalized increased anxiety. In addition, anxiety and fear in themselves have a positive meaning. For example, when you cross the road, the level of anxiety naturally increases. The body and psyche need this in order to increase attentiveness and general tone, which allows you to quickly respond to a situation of increased danger. This mechanism is laid down at the subcortical level and works automatically, practically without the participation of consciousness.

What are anxiety-phobic experiences

Real phobias are obsessive, emotionally rich and intense. The experience of such fear is always associated with the avoidance of meeting the object or situation that causes it. Often a person cannot explain to himself or others why he is afraid of this phenomenon or object. The source of painful experiences lies in the realm of the unconscious. In the process of psychotherapy of anxiety-phobic disorder, one has to analyze the anamnestic data and all available information about the patient, use the method of associations, projective techniques and other psychological techniques to find and eliminate the cause.

Such phobias as, for example, arachnophobia (fear of spiders), lysophobia (fear of insanity), nyctophobia (fear of the dark) and so on, the list can get very long, are called simple phobias. There are phobias associated with social functioning. They are called social. In their structure is the fear of being in the center of people's attention and looking awkward. At such moments, people feel awkward, ashamed, afraid that everyone is paying attention to them.

There are also phobias, when the patient himself initially understands and easily voices to the specialist the psychogenic causes of their occurrence. When any traumatic event, for example, a car accident or a sudden deterioration in somatic condition, leads to the formation of fears and phobias.

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the fear of open spaces. A very common disorder. Often accompanied by panic attacks, fear of loss of control, heart attack or other physical catastrophe, fear that no one will come to the rescue. Often agoraphobia is combined with claustrophobia - the fear of being in a closed room, the inability to get out - and manifests itself in the form of panic attacks.

Psychotherapy of phobic anxiety disorders

People suffering from phobic anxiety disorders definitely need psychological and psychotherapeutic help. A course of psychotherapy can permanently get rid of existing fears, and in clinically difficult cases, it will significantly reduce the intensity of painful experiences.

If this problem is left unattended, the condition may worsen, acquiring a chronic course or generalization, i.e. expansion of manifestations of phobias. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists call this term the process when the number of phobias grows, including all new phenomena and events. If earlier agoraphobia manifested itself only in large areas, then with generalization, a person hardly manages to leave the house, and this will lead to artificial social isolation and other problems.

In the treatment of anxiety-phobic disorders, such types of psychotherapy as cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, hypnotherapy have proven themselves well.

Phobias: symptoms and causes

Phobia is a strong fear that cannot be controlled and rationally explained.

If ordinary fear can be explained logically and thus get rid of it, then phobias are irrational and often occur along with panic attacks. Fighting a phobia is very difficult, since the cause of its occurrence is often difficult to explain, but timely consultation with a psychotherapist can solve this problem and save a person from uncontrollable experiences and unpredictable actions.

The irrationality of a phobia lies in the fact that a person's fear of a certain object or phenomenon does not correspond to the actual danger. For example, a huge, aggressive dog is a threat, and the fear for health and life in this case is rational, but a miniature lapdog in a leash and in a muzzle, which evokes similar emotions, defies explanation. Fear of a dog can be overcome with logical arguments (the owner of the dog is nearby and assures you of its friendliness), but if no one and nothing can calm you down and panic sets in, then this is already a phobia.

Symptoms of all types of phobias are similar and resemble those of a panic attack:

strong heartbeat;
breathing difficulties, choking;
dry mouth;
increased blood pressure;
discomfort in the stomach and nausea;
chest pain or pressure;
shiver;
dizziness;
increased sweating;
weakness in the legs;
a feeling of unreality of what is happening or of oneself.

The main causes of phobias

Experts identify the following causes of inexplicable fear - biological, genetic, psychological, social.

Biological and hereditary factors

The lack of a certain acid in the body (gamma-aminobutyric acid), which has a sedative effect, leads to an increase in fear and anxiety, which in turn contributes to the risk of phobias. The reasons for the decrease in the amount of this acid can be brain injuries, long-term use of drugs and psychotropic drugs, stress and depression.

In addition, the cause of phobias may be a genetic factor. If one of the parents suffers from a phobic disorder, then the risk of developing a phobia in a child is very high. However, what exactly influenced this, hereditary predisposition or certain behavior of a relative, it is difficult to say.

Social causes

Most often, the emergence of phobias contributes to the influence of external factors, especially various events of a shocking nature that occurred in childhood. It is the psychological traumas of childhood: insect or animal bites, loss of loved ones or prolonged separation, negative experience of swimming or indoors, and the like that usually grow into unpredictable fears.

Psychological factors

Some phobic disorders and panic attacks are not traceable to any trauma or event, in which case the causes are often hidden in the subconscious. Incorrect explanation of any words or actions, an incorrect view of current and future events, infringement of characteristic features and other psychological problems can also affect the occurrence of phobias.

Certain fears appeared in the process of evolution, for example, the fear of open space has its roots in the distant past, when there was a danger of attack by wild animals in an unprotected place.

Social causes

The appearance of social phobias can be facilitated by excessively strict upbringing or criticism of parents, inadequate assessment by adults of the events taking place with the child, unsuccessful experience of communicating with peers or the opposite sex.

Thus, traumatic situations, affecting the fragile psyche or hereditary predisposition, as well as social and financial situation, contribute to the emergence and development of various phobias.

Types of phobias

Currently, experts distinguish about 400 types of irrational fear. The systematization of phobias is a rather difficult process, since here it is necessary to take into account the factors of their appearance and development, signs and methods of treatment. Let us dwell on the most popular way of distinguishing varieties of phobias - according to the plot of fear, i.e., according to the object that causes such strong emotions.

Fear of certain situations

This includes the strongest negative experiences from anticipation or being in a situation. Such phobias usually appear after experiencing intense fear in certain circumstances. This may be the fear of any type of transport (airplanes, ships, trains, etc.), closed or open spaces, as well as the fear of loneliness, etc.

Social phobias

Here are collected all the fears associated with the pathological horror of being in front of other people: fear of speaking in public, unfamiliar society, exams, large crowds, and so on.

Fear of people

Inexplicable horror can be caused by people of a certain profession, nationality, status, gender, sexual orientation, age, appearance, etc.

Fear of disease (nosophobia)

Any sane person avoids disease by maintaining a healthy lifestyle, taking prescribed vitamins and medications on time, but for some, concern for their well-being goes beyond reasonable limits and develops into an irrational pursuit of health. More and more people in our time are subject to the fear of cancer (carcinophobia).

Thanatophobia

- fear of death. Probably, we are all afraid of dying to some extent, but thanatophobes experience constant panic and anxiety, which provokes the occurrence of neurosis and prolonged depression in them.

Fear of states

Any person experiences various emotions and understands that these experiences are natural. Some are so afraid of being in a certain state (impoverished, bankrupt, getting rich) that they experience panic attacks. This also includes the fear of experiencing certain emotions, the fear of old age, failure, etc.

Fear of action

The anticipation or performance of some action entails an inexplicable fear. It can be a fear of dancing, singing, cooking, studying, performing, and more.

Fear of places

We often avoid certain places where we once experienced negative emotions (morgue, night cemetery). People who are prone to this group of phobias, from the mere thought of some place (elevator, roof, church, theater) can experience horror and dizziness.

Fear of substances

A person with this disorder experiences uncontrollable panic to the point of insanity at the mention or sight of some substance. The most common phobias of this type are methylophobia (fear of alcohol), pharmacophobia (fear of drugs), amatophobia (fear of dirt) and cibophobia (fear of food).

Fear of objects

Fear of specific objects often arises after negative situations with these objects that have taken place in life (fear of sharp objects, mirrors, weapons, etc. ). In addition, this type of phobia also includes fear of a certain color, size or shape of objects.

Zoophobia

A fairly large group of horror in front of a certain type of animal. Any person has a fear of wild or aggressive representatives of the animal world, but we are unlikely to experience horror in the zoo or at the mere thought of a certain animal.

Fear of mysticism

Many go into the world of mysticism, not finding themselves in ordinary real life. Fear of committing sin, God's punishment, fear of magicians, sorcerers, holy places - only a small part of the fertile mystical soil for the emergence of phobias.

Fear of natural phenomena

Horror and helplessness experienced before the destructive phenomena of nature is considered the result of genetic memory. Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes are really dangerous, and so far man has not learned to fully cope with them. However, there are a huge number of phobias associated with quite ordinary and harmless phenomena: wind, snow, fog, moon, sunlight, water, and so on.

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