Simple Phobias- Summary
Most people have met someone with a significant fear of a
particular object or situation, such as closed spaces
(claustrophobia), heights (acrophobia), water (aquaphobia), snakes
(ophidiphobia), or lightning (astraphobia). When a person has a
persistent, irrational fear of an object or situation and a strong
urge to avoid that object or situation, he has a "simple
phobia" -- an inappropriately intense reaction triggered by a
single stimulus.
The most common phobias are of specific animals and insects, of
the natural elements, such as storms or water, of heights and of
closed-in spaces.
The person with a specific phobia may react with mild anxiety or
even with panic when confronted with the prospect of facing the
fearful situation. However, his fear is not of his symptoms (as in
panic disorder or agoraphobia) but of the situation itself, which he
believes to be a dangerous one.
Some may fear that they will lose their senses and do something
foolish. The person with a height phobia, for instance, might fear
that he will forget what he is doing and accidentally leaf off the
cliff on which he is standing. Others with phobias fear that
something will go wrong with their circumstances. The individual
with a flying phobia might vividly imagine the tail falling off the
plane, or the pilot losing consciousness with no one to take over,
or the oxygen running out in mid-flight.
Such fears defy rational thinking. Most phobics know that they
are being excessive and unreasonable in their thoughts, but this
knowledge is of no use to them. The fearful thoughts come
automatically in spite of rational thought and thus the phobic may
believe the only recourse is to avoid the problematic area.
On the next page you will learn more about simple phobias and
their treatment.
If you want to find ways to help yourself overcome your phobia,
start here:
The Panic Attack Self-Help Program. I will offer you
self-help instructions through the program designed for those with
panic attacks, since most of the skills are identical. Feel
free to skip the sections that are obviously not relevant to you
(for instance, possibly the one on physical causes of panic like
symptoms). But do not assume that a section isn't relevant
before reading through it. Some sections (like Step
3:"shift your attitude"), will be right on target.
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