Phobias: what it is, causes and treatment

Almost every one of us is afraid of something. Some do not tolerate darkness, others fear height or depth. But this fear does not always turn into a phobia. The usual healthy fear is dictated by the ancient instinct of self-preservation, survival, and there is nothing abnormal in it. Phobias are able to change a person’s life, limit it, so they definitely need treatment.

Phobias are an inexplicable fear of something. Fear of this in most cases has no sound grounds, but it has pronounced signs. From horror, a person loses control of himself, his heartbeat quickens, his breathing depth changes, muscle spasms, nausea and vomiting, loss of consciousness, and dizziness may occur. Very many phobias are accompanied panic attacks.

If a person after an attack to ask about what exactly he is afraid of, then in most cases the answer will be received that there is nothing to be afraid of. Foby perfectly give an account to themselves of the groundlessness of fear, but they can do nothing with themselves at the moment of fright and panic. Therefore, they find no other way out how to start avoiding intimidating traumatic situations, avoid them, to build your life in such a way as not to see, not to listen, not to perceive dangerous circumstances, to keep from them as far as possible.

So people with fear of confined space refuse to travel in the elevator and always walk, and social phobic people who are afraid of public condemnation and society as a whole, lock themselves in their four walls and lead a recluse lifestyle, aerophobes for any distances move only by land, without risking in planes, and niktofoby, afraid of the dark, sleep only with the lights on.

Phobia is called any irrational fear of a person who in one degree or another compels him to change his life. Phobias are not considered a mental illness in the full sense of the word. They are anxious personality disorders. But this does not mean that phobias do not need treatment. Avoiding disturbing situations can greatly facilitate the existence of a fob, but can not eradicate his problem. And every time a person will be in certain situations or circumstances, he will experience panic, the attacks of which are noticeable even at the physical level.

Phobias gradually make a person hostage, they force him to take at all those decisions that he would like to take, force him to give up his dream job, and sometimes - to start a family, to communicate with his own kind, and to travel.

It is believed that almost 70% of the world's inhabitants suffer from various phobias, but in a pathological form, fears are found only in 8-11% of the population. Asians, Africans and Latin Americans, according to research scientists, are less susceptible to phobic disorders than Europeans and Westerners. Women and children suffer from phobias more often than men.

The sooner the problem is noticed, the more chances for its complete cure. But true shacks do not often come to psychiatrists and psychotherapists for help in the initial stages of their disorder.And in most cases, access to a doctor occurs even when the phobia begins to coexist with other mental disorders, for example, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and sometimes schizophrenia and various mania.

Phobic mental disorder itself increases the likelihood of developing other mental problems.

The exact number of phobias to which people are exposed is not known to science. But the current lists include about 300 types of fears from classical ones - fear of darkness, height, depth, cramped spaces, death, to very original ones - fear of mother-in-law, fear of the Pope of Rome and cumpunophobia (panic fear of buttons).

The lists of phobic disorders are regularly updated with new ones that correspond to the spirit of the time, for example, imodjifobiya - it is a panic fear of incorrectly using emoticons in correspondence on the Internet, fear that the chosen “faces” and “buns” will be misunderstood.

Conditionally people's fears can be divided. alarms related to health, food, spatial, natural and social. There is also a separate group of phobias - mystical.

The first group is the largest. Basically, it includes all phobias in which a person feels panicky from the prospect of becoming ill with a particular disease or group of diseases. Such fears may be caused by the fact that a relative had a disease, the patient himself had previously, or an abundance of frightening information about an illness, which for an especially impressionable and disturbing person may cease to be information and become a signal of danger.

Here are just a few phobias of the first group:

• aliophobia - pathological fear suddenly deaf;
• aknefobia - irrational fear of acne;
• angina phobia - fear of suddenly suffocating;
• apoplexyphobia - fear of cerebral hemorrhage, stroke;
• misophobia - fear of dirt, microbial infection, infectious diseases, manifested by a pathological attitude to the purity of his body and surrounding space;
• bromhydrophobia - fear that others will feel an unpleasant smell of sweat, body odor, manifested in the excessive use of deodorants, frequent washing;
• venerophobia - pathological fear of sexually transmitted diseases, which can even lead to a complete abandonment of sexual relations, kisses, hugs;
• hemophobia - fear of blood;
• carcinophobia (carcino-phobia) - pathological fear of getting cancer;
• manophobia - a strong fear of possible mental illnesses, which, as it seems to the patient, can develop at any moment;
• peladophobia - fear of baldness, in which a person is sensitive to bald people, tries to avoid contact with them, meetings, and is overly concerned about the health of their hair;
• iatrophobia - pathological fear of doctors, nurses, often accompanied by a complete refusal of treatment, examinations, visits to medical specialists.

Food phobias come from a person’s specific beliefs about food and sometimes go beyond all reasonable boundaries. These include such fears as:

• sitophobia - pathological fear is in general;
• phagophobia - fear of swallowing, so as not to choke;
• hemophobia - fear of chemical additives in food;
• toxicophobia - fear of being poisoned.

Most often people have phobias associated with natural phenomena and animals. Fears such as are quite common:

• arachnophobia - pathological fear of spiders;
• felinophobia - fear of cats and kittens;
• musophobia - panic horror from the sight of mice, rats;
• film phobia - fear of dogs of any breeds and sizes;
• herpetophobia - fear of snakes and reptiles.

There are people who panicked fear of thunder. They suffer brontophobia. And those who do not go into the forest, pathologically fearing getting lost in it, are called hilophobic. If the kind of fire causes a person to have a panic attack, then his problem is called pyrophobia, and walks with a dosimeter in hand, due to fears that the level of radiation will suddenly increase, are caused by radiophobia. People who fear the sea are called thalassophobia those who cannot lift their heads and look at the sky without panic fear of this action are called uranophobes.

Spatial phobias are well-known due to the fact that they are often covered in movies, books. For example, claustrophobia - fear of confined spaces, characteristic of 3-5% of the inhabitants of the planet to one degree or another, and agoraphobia (panic fear of open spaces and crowds) up to 2-3% of people suffer. This also includes fears of large empty spaces. (kenophobia)as well as the fear of very large items (giant phobia)fear of falling into the tunnels (tunnel telephobia) and fear of crossing the streets (haemophobia).

Social phobias are also a large body of human anxiety. This includes all fears that are somehow connected with interaction in society. These are the most difficult phobias that are hardest to correct. This includes social phobia (fear of society), androphobia (pathological fear of men), autophobia (panic fear of being alone), gamophobia - fear of marriage, cororphyophobia - fear of making a mistake, failing, helotophobia - fear of being ridiculed.

There are phobias associated with personal space within society. So fear of the unknown (aglosophobia) makes a person almost always suspicious of others and be in constant tension and anxiety.

People are afraid of a variety of things - from electricity and cold to the invasion of aliens (ufofobiya). Recently, fear of a zombie apocalypse is gaining momentum. (cinemato-phobia), he forces people to build bunkers on a personal plot, store canned goods and batteries for the future.

They are afraid of people of all mystical - demonophobia it is the fear of demons and the devil. The real panic in some people is the fear of numbers (both common, for example, “13”, and some personal numbers that are important for a particular person). There are fears of their own shadow, fear of being left without a mobile phone, someone afraid of mushrooms and vegetables, and someone of wind and rain.

In any case, foby see only one option. - eliminate dangerous situations in which they are uncomfortable. Most fob are very concerned about the opinions of others, they are very disturbing and impressionable people who are afraid to make a mistake, to be rejected, if someone suddenly becomes aware of their anxieties and fears. They try to avoid conflicts. They are ready to agree with you about the fact that in reality there is absolutely nothing to fear, but in most cases they cannot overcome their fears by themselves.

Speaking about the most frequent fears, it is necessary to note those phobias that are characteristic of at least 3-5% of the population. And the prevalence can be noted the following phobias:

• nyctophobia - fear of darkness, nights, occurs in about eight children out of ten, and every tenth adult;
• acrophobia - fear of height, characteristic of 8% of the population of the Earth;
• aerophobia - fear of flying on airplanes and other aircraft;
• claustrophobia - up to 5% of the world's inhabitants are terrified of cramped and confined spaces;
• aquaphobia - fear of water to one degree or another - up to 3% of the world's inhabitants experience discomfort from bathing and to the complete abandonment of water procedures;
• ophidiophobia - panic fear of snakes (both real and imaginary) occurs in at least 3% of adults;
• hemophobia (hematophobia) - the fear of blood is at least two adults out of a hundred people;
• thanatophobia - panic horror before physical death;
• glossofobia - fear of publicly speaking to an audience (almost everyone has it, but in the form of a phobia it is in 3% of adults).

Very important to distinguish a phobia from ordinary fearwhich people experience as a defense mechanism of our brain. A phobia is when you are not just afraid of being left alone or losing your loved one, being in a completely dark room or facing a solid-sized spider. A phobia is when the situation described causes obvious physical symptoms of panic - breathing and heartbeat are disturbed, control over one’s behavior is completely or completely lost.

Mentally and emotionally healthy person is quite difficult to imagine how you can be afraid, for example, of a keyhole or buttons on clothes, but phobias are very many-sided, and there are quite interesting fears, many of which are not well understood.

• Gnosiophobia - this is a strong fear before obtaining new knowledge. There are such pupils and students on the planet who are not lazy, shirking their studies, but are really afraid of new information that they can get in lessons and lectures. Fear is allegedly associated with the fear of not assimilating, not understanding the essence of the information, of becoming an outcast among themselves. This form of phobia is often found in children, "Mowgli", who for a long time spent without a human society. Even after they adapt to people, they have a panic fear of complex new information that they need to assimilate.

• White Leaf Disease (Creative Phobia) - the horror that a person feels, in front of which lies a blank sheet of paper (as an option - a blank sheet is opened on the computer screen). This fear is inherent in people whose activities are related to writing, journalism, poets and teachers. A blank sheet in an impressionable creator is associated with a lack of thoughts, stupor in advancing work, which can cause great excitement with signs of a panic attack.

• Kumpunofobiya - a person experiences a pathological horror at the sight of buttons and, if necessary, to perform some actions with them (sew, unzip, fasten). Kumpunofoby try to avoid this accessory in their clothes. In the severe form of this phobia, excitement and anxiety may occur at the sight of buttons on the clothes of other people, which, given their prevalence, invariably leads to the fact that the cum-nophob restricts its communication with people, maintaining contact only with those who do not wear button-clothes .

• Pogonophobia - panic fear of a beard. This type of fear has been described relatively recently. Such a disorder manifests itself by careful avoidance of bearded bears in principle. Own appearance (if we are talking about a man) will also be important for the straps. He can shave up to several times a day, fearing that he will show even the slightest bristle. Women pogonofoby require perfect smoothness of the skin on the face of their men, what can bring him to this nervous breakdown.

• Lacanophobia - pathological fear of vegetables. Fear can be as before a certain vegetable (for example, only before a turnip or cabbage), and before all vegetables in general. Anxiety increases with the appearance of vegetables.In most cases, the disorder is also accompanied by a refusal to eat them and intolerance not only of the species, but also of the smell of vegetables.

• Neophobia - panic fear of the clouds. The cloud has no clear form, it “flows”, changes, is in motion, and this can cause quite tangible anxiety. But such a disorder is rarely accompanied by panic attacks.

• Omphalophobia - rejection of the navel. People with this disorder cannot look at the navel without a shudder - their own or someone else's. Usually they do not allow anyone to touch him, and even themselves can avoid touching this part of the body. Psychiatrists link the occurrence of such a phobia with perinatal "memory", but there is no single version of the causes of the development of the disorder.

Rare are phobias that occur in less than 1% of patients with various fears. Here are a few of these disorders.

• Ablutophobia - panic fear of water procedures, bathing, washing, washing, washing. Ablutophobes are so afraid of such procedures that they try to do without them. In a mild form, the disorder does not prevent a person from even occasionally being forced to wash or take a shower, but these actions are associated for him with significant discomfort and even emotional distress. Ablutophobes are prone to bouts of delirium and loss of consciousness if they feel that contact with water cannot be prevented.

• Papaphobia - fear of the Pope. This is a new disorder that was not previously known. Today, several cases of panic fear of the name, the image of the head of the Catholic Church are reported.

• Panterafobiya - A strong fear of mother-in-law or mother-in-law. This is a rare form of phobic disorder, which is manifested in the fact that a man is completely unbearable to communicate with the mother-in-law, and a woman with a mother-in-law. In this case, it is not about disagreements, but about the horror that panteraphob is experiencing. The very prospect of meeting with a relative causes nausea, dizziness, a change in the level of blood pressure, can cause a loss of self-control.

• Anthophobia - fear of flowers. It can be manifested both in relation to some individual plants, and all flowers in general. Most often there is a panic to plants in pots, which many consider to be true symbols of comfort and beauty. Of the colors most often anthophobic are afraid of irises, tulips, roses, and carnations.

• Isurofobiya - fear of cats. For most, the image of cute kittens or graceful cats is pleasant, it causes positive emotions. But not for Iylofoba or filophobe. People who are terrified of baleen-striped animals try to avoid situations of encounter with these animals and avoid their images. Sometimes fear only extends to the prospect of being attacked by a cat, but sometimes horror literally everything - from purring to wool. Such a disorder suffered the conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte.

• Hypnophobia - pathological fear of sleep. A person is afraid to fall asleep for various reasons - either waiting for nightmares, or fear of dying in a dream, being paralyzed, or being vulnerable and not having a chance to defend oneself in case of an attack. True hypnophobes can bring themselves to death and insanity if they avoid sleeping for a long time. Joseph Stalin, who was very afraid to die in his sleep, suffered from this kind of disorder in moderation, so he worked hard at night for a long time.

• Nomophobia - panic fear of being without a phone. A phobia is still rare, but will soon become common, because it is rapidly progressing, according to experts in the field of psychotherapy.Nomophobes are very dependent on their gadgets. Attack of fear can cause not only the thought of the loss or breakdown of the phone, but also the suddenly “dead” battery of the device. Even for a few hours to remain without communication is the most traumatic circumstance that can be in the life of a nomophobe.

• Tetraphobia - fear of the number "4". Here it’s not even the medical side of the issue that is curious, but its cultural component. This number is not feared in Europe, but very much feared in Japan, China and both Koreas. The fact is that in almost all Asian languages ​​the hieroglyph 死, very reminiscent of "4", means "death", and therefore the general fear led to the fact that there is no fourth floor in houses, hotels and clinics of East Asia, there is no place in cinemas number "4", and the numbering of houses trying to do so to avoid the building with the appropriate sequence number.

• Chronophobia - fear of time. This more than strange disorder was first found in prisoners sentenced to lengthy sentences by the courts. One prospect of a long time, the slow flow of time, caused them depression, panic, hysteria. The other extreme is the fear of a rapid flow of time and the onset of old age (gerascophobia). Geraskopoby can not properly build their lives, plan something, do, because all their thoughts are busy pessimistic thoughts that time is rapidly running out.

According to the existing classification, phobias are called specific, which are isolated in nature, that is, limited to certain situations, circumstances, actions, or directly by some specific objects. This includes almost all phobias in relation to animals (fear of cats or dogs, fear of horses or lizards). An isolated phobia applies only to one object - one who is afraid of cats in panic is not afraid of dogs or frogs.

Fears of heights, darkness, flights by air, visits to public toilets, fears of certain types of food, fear of dentists or sharp objects are considered specific.

For all isolated specific phobias characteristic early appearance - in childhood or adolescence. If left untreated, they do not go away on their own, and long-term specific phobias may well progress, and the person will acquire other concomitant mental disorders.

Why a person develops this or that phobia is hard to say. Until now, scientists, doctors are debating on this topic. But there are several concepts that explain the occurrence of such mental disorders. Experts in the field of biology and medicine are inclined to believe that phobias can be inherited, but genetics have never tried to find certain genes that could be blamed for human fears.

That is why the pedagogical version of inherited phobias sounds more convincing - children simply perceive at face value the vision of the world that is characteristic of their parents. They copy adult behavior patterns, and if a mother is terrified of mice or spiders, there is a high probability that the child will grow up with exactly the same personal fear. A social phobia parent who is afraid of society and prefers to live in “his shell” is more likely to pass on information about the “danger” of the outside world to his children, and their risk of developing social phobia in the future is several times higher.

There is a fairly convincing version of the development of phobias in connection with the violation of the level of hormones, which can be both inherited and acquired.In this case, it is believed that the development of a phobia is preceded by an increased content of catecholamines in the human body, an excessive amount of adrenaline, a malfunction of GABA metabolism receptors.

Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts see phobias as a relic of the past. Fear has helped people at the dawn of humanity to survive as a species. If they were not afraid of darkness, animals, attacks, strange unfamiliar food, humankind would hardly have survived and become a sufficiently developed civilization - they would die from cold, hunger, poisoning, claws and teeth of predators, would kill each other in tribal wars. Fear as a defense mechanism is necessary, and today, when many dangers are no longer threatened by people, it continues to remain (after millions of years of development it is difficult to get rid of it).

Experts in the field of behavioral therapy are confident that any phobia is the result of an incorrectly fixed patient's reaction to an external irritant. In other words, having experienced fear and panic once in a situation, a person may have a close connection between the same situations and the panic itself. If a child is severely scratched by a cat or bitten by a dog, then it is possible that the fear and panic state that the child experienced at that moment may be fixed in relation to the object - to the cat or dog. In the first case, the development of filinophobia is likely, in the second - film phobia.

According to this theory, fear almost always has "childish" roots. Even if an adult does not remember some event from his own childhood, which caused him sustained fear, for example, basements or cockroaches, this does not mean that there was no event. Circumstances were forgotten, not preserved in memory, but the existing connection between the panic reaction and a certain object (circumstance) is evident. A cut in childhood can be the basis of a pathological fear of sharp objects in adulthood (aichmophobia), and watching a fire can lead to fear of fire (pyrophobia).

The cause of the phobia can be improper upbringing. If parents overly care for the child, then the child may well grow up as an inactive, unable to make decisions and afraid of any responsibility (hypeniophobia). Constant statements by mom and dad, grandmother or grandfather that dogs are very dangerous can cause cinema-phobia, and statements that people cannot be trusted can become the basis of sustainable social phobia.

Another educational extreme, which can also underlie a phobia - ignoring the fears of the child. If the child has no one to share his fears, there is no place to get comprehensive explanations about the irrationality of his fears, if he is simply ignored, gives him little attention, there is no sincere contact with parents, then fears quickly take root in the child's mind and deal with them later it is difficult or impossible .

Punishments can become a “trigger” for phobias - there are quite a few claustrophobes who were locked up in a closet as a child, in a basement, in a closet, put into punishment in a dark corner, etc. And there are a lot of those who were lost in the square He strayed from his parents and was very frightened about this.

Phobia can develop in both adults and children under the influence of persistent external information. Fear of attics or basements, terrorists or a decompression sickness can develop after watching horror films, thrillers, fear of doctors can become real after having received a strong impression of the news about a medical error or of a film in which there was a villain-doctor.

The development of phobias affects people who have fallen into disasters, war zones, natural disasters, accidents and accidents. At the same time, the theme and type of phobia usually correspond to the circumstances - aquaphobia often develops in those who survived a flood or drowned, but was saved, hoplofobia (fear of arms) develops in people who came under fire, were in an area where fighting was taking place and etc. People who are under the rubble are more likely to encounter claustrophobia in the future.

How to recognize a phobia in yourself or a loved one, how to understand whether there is a mental disorder, or is it about the most common fear inherent in all? This question is very important. Therefore, you should know what are the signs of this phobia. First of all it an acute attack of fear that occurs every time a person meets with certain circumstances or objects.

During contact with a frightening circumstance or an object, a person has a narrowing of consciousness and perception. He has at this moment the whole world is limited only by this circumstance, and therefore distract from something else is impossible, nothing else at this moment for a fob in the world exists.

The brain quickly starts a chain of reactions and vegetative reactions occur - control over one's own actions is lost, breathing becomes faster, it becomes shallow, shallow, heartbeat becomes more frequent, a large amount of sweat is released, it dries out in the mouth due to the termination of salivary glands secretion, dizziness occurs, weakness appears in the legs. A person may lose consciousness.

Usually the first manifestations of phobias are associated with a strong fright and panic, in subsequent relapses there is an increase in the level of fear. In order to somehow ease his life, a person begins to avoid possible “dangerous” situations for him, and this avoidance is fixed as a distinctive feature of behavior. If you see someone who carefully wipes his hands with a damp cloth after each handshake or constantly checks the freshness of his breath, you can be sure that obsessive behavioral patterns in this case are signs of a certain phobia in the person (in the first case - mesophobia, and in the second - halitophobia).

If the fear is so “exotic” that it is easy to avoid it in the future (for example, a resident of the north is afraid of large tropical spiders that you will not meet in the north for obvious natural reasons), then repeated attacks may not be for years. But this is not a cure, but only an illusion of victory over the problem. It is necessary for a northerner-arachnophobe to accidentally see the image of a tarantula or unsuccessfully switch the TV and get on the program about wildlife, where they tell about the spiders of Africa or Australia, how he can experience a strong attack of horror, panic, with all the conclusions of a panic attack.

Foby very carefully plan their actions. When fear of crossing the street, people think over alternative routes a hundred times to get to their destination. If there are no such routes, then he may refuse to go there at all.

The danger of a phobia lies in the fact that a person's life suffers significantly, undergoes changes that prevent him from living freely and quietly, to communicate, work, travel. But this is not the only reason why phobias are recommended not to be suppressed, but treated.If the phob often gets into an alarming situation (lives in the center of a big city with fear of streets and squares or suffers from pediophobia - fear of children), then it is more likely that he will try to drown his fears with drugs, alcohol, psychotropic substances.

That is why there are a lot of alcoholics, drug addicts, people suffering from tranquilizers, etc. among phobias.

There is no cure for a fast-acting panic attack. Drug treatment is generally not very effective for phobias, so modern psychiatrists and psychotherapists try to prescribe medications only in extreme cases, preferring antidepressants (tranquilizers simply suppress the perception of fear, cause strong dependence and do not cure the root cause in any way). If the decision is made on the appointment of medications, they are recommended exclusively short courses with long breaks.

The most effective method of overcoming phobic disorders today is considered cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. It represents a rather lengthy and painstaking collaboration of the patient and the doctor. First, there is the identification of specific situations and objects that cause horror. Then the specialist begins to help the person create new installations that emphasize the erroneousness of the old ones and help to take a fresh look at what seemed terrible and dreadful yesterday. At this stage, the effects of hypnosis and NLP can be applied.

Then the person gradually begins to be immersed in stressful situations. First, those that initially caused less fear, and then the most terrible nightmares. Immersion is monitored by a doctor at each stage. This helps a person to change the perception of a terrible situation and perceive it calmly. Therapy is combined with relaxation techniques, methods of deep muscle relaxation are especially effective.

Psychoanalysts are looking for a deep inner conflict of a person, which led to an outward manifestation - panic. They raise childhood memories, fears, dreams, images, and find the “problem link” that triggers the fear of something. Then this link is corrected.

Today, they also use the possibilities of virtual reality, using augmented reality glasses and virtual worlds specially created for phobes for the therapy of fears.

The prognosis of cure depends on how how much the patient himself is interested in getting rid of his anxiety and panic. The most effective treatment is the one in which the patient cooperates with the doctor, fulfills all his recommendations, takes the prescribed medications on time, does not allow self-medication, and does not miss psychotherapy sessions.

Also at the time of treatment, a person should give up alcohol, drugs and other bad habits. It will be good if someone close will be near - support and help to evaluate the intermediate results that can be achieved. Sometimes recommended keep a diary of observations of their emotions.

About what phobias really are, see the next video.