Specific phobias are prevalent worldwide. While you may experience common fears such as heights or snakes, you may also become phobic of something less familiar. Avoidance may be typical for you if you’re dealing with a phobia.
While avoidance means you don’t have to face the anxiety, avoiding may only make confronting the object you’re afraid of more anxiety-provoking when you have to confront it. The standard treatment for phobia is psychotherapy, as many types of therapy are effective in helping reduce symptoms associated with phobias. Medications aren’t yet as helpful in treating phobias. Remember, if you’re dealing with a phobia, you aren’t alone and can get help.
Antidepressants are commonly used to treat depression. However, they also help to reduce the symptoms of phobias (particularly agoraphobia and social phobia), even if you are not depressed. There are different types of antidepressant. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (ssri) antidepressants are the ones most commonly used for anxiety and phobic disorders.
Who is affected by phobias?
What are phobias?
phobias are an extremely strong fear that a person has of something – for instance an animal, a feeling, an object, situation or place (often known as the ‘trigger’).
A phobia associates the trigger with extreme feelings of danger, and can cause huge restrictions and anxieties around a person’s life, as they try to avoid it. Some people may not be distressed by their phobia unless they are physically near it or in the situation at the time, while others can be affected just by thinking about their phobia. How are you feeling?
it is good to understand and to monitor how you are feeling.
There are both physical, behavioural and emotional symptoms associated with a phobia – when faced with the source of the phobia, it’s common for someone to feel intense panic and fear. A desire to run away from the situation absolute terror when faced with the fear inducing object or situation avoidance behaviour such as not going out, not touching objects in public or not socialising physical symptoms including trembling, heart palpitations, feeling sick and dizziness, panic attacks obsessing about the fear and not being able to think of anything else anxiety at the thought of the fear whilst we might all have fears, phobias can be overwhelming and distressing to live with and for many affected with fears of common situations, such as public spaces or flying, can have a serious impact on their lives and those of their family.
Phobia, unlike fear, is defined by: intense and excessive anxiety about a feared object or situation feeling as if fear of the object or situation is holding you back avoiding the feared object or situation though plenty of people would be startled or even shriek at the sight of a snake slithering across their foot, not everyone would feel this fear holds them back or impairs them. Someone with a true phobia of snakes would feel intense anxiety when snakes might be present or avoid the situation altogether. If you have a phobia, you could experience physical symptoms like: rapid heartbeat phobias are the most common types of anxiety disorders in the united states.
Phobia treatment at nightingale hospital can take place as an outpatient , day patient or inpatient. Our approach to treating phobias combines individualised programmes with treatments based on current clinical evidence. There are two types of treatment for phobias.