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Phobias Fear and Stress - Solutions to overcome phobias
How do our fears create phobias and how to overcome them. Practical techniques to create a stress free life.

Phobia, What is it?

Phobia is present when you are frightened beyond more than the situation or object would cause. And for these situations, there may be absolutely no reason whatsoever for you to be afraid about. It is just that your mind exaggerates the situation that you are in and portrays it in such a way that causes you to think about it in a different kind of way that makes you scare yourself. Hence developing your intense fear for that particular situation or object. With that development of raging fear, you would most probably avoid getting into those situations that you are afraid about and stay away from the object of your fear at all costs.

WHY ARE WE PLAGUED BY PHOBIAS ?

There are a few reasons why you are plagued by certain phobias.

1. Externalization.

   You may be experiencing some inner conflicts that you find difficult to find a solution to. Hence to help you release some of your pent up feelings, you externalize them onto some outside object.
   
   An example would be. A girl afraid of heights; even looking down from the fourth floor, makes her irrationally afraid. This might be because she is actually secretly trying to repress her persistent thoughts of committing suicide, or even throwing her beloved dog out.
   
2. Traumatized by an occurrence
   
   Research has shown that phobias may be a result from a traumatic event that may have occurred to the phobic.
   
   An example would be; a woman, who got bitten by a stray bulldog when she was a little girl, may avoid any kind of bulldogs with a vengeance after that, even though the bulldog that she may encounter later may be a really tame one.

PHOBIAS: TREATMENTS

Like any illnesses that we may have, phobias can be treated. However, it is often a long and tedious journey to recovery. Below are a few ways to help a phobic overcome his or her fear.

1. Positive Reinforcement
   
   Imitation is the key factor to the success of a person's development in this treatment. It is obvious that people, even babies learn best when they can observe and try to imitate a model.
   
   Taking the previous example of the lady who was bitten by a bulldog when she was a child; If she over time is able to observe somebody who owns a bulldog, groom, play and cuddle up to the bulldog, and also with close supervision be encouraged to pet and later try to model the behavior of the owner. Through these activities, she would gradually be able to approach a bulldog and pet it without shuddering anymore, hence overcoming her fear of it.
   
2. Systematic Desensitization
   
   This treatment encompasses three major steps.
   • a) Identification
     Identifying the causes that provoke the phobia, and arrange them in a hierarchical order from weakest to strongest.
   • b) Relaxation
     Learning deep muscle relaxation.
   • c) Desensitization
     In the relaxed state of mind, visualize the weakest cause from the list. If it still causes you to shudder from fear, return back to step b again, until you are able to visualize it without being fearful. Then work through the list created in step a till you are able to think of the strongest cause without any fear.

This way of treatment however would be ideally suited for specific phobic reactions.. It is successful when being applied to a huge range of problems that humans encountered.

1. Logo therapy
   
   A kind of therapy that hones in on helping people see meaning in their lives. Research has shown that people who suffer from phobias are not really concerned about the object or situation that they fear about, instead they are much more afraid of being afraid about it. This is termed "flight from fear". This flight from fear may be even more damaging than the fear itself, as it actually acts as the trigger to the person's fear --- a phobic reaction.
   
   This treatment encourages the phobic to do, wish for and hope for the very thing he fears to happen. So instead of thinking damaging and fearful thoughts, the phobic are should face their fears head on and overcome them.
   
2. Graded Exposure
   
   A phobic should expose himself to the situation or object that he most fears. This is done as research has shown that when a phobic puts himself into the situation or faces the object he fears head on, and stays put in the situation or with the object without running away, his fear of it would peak to a maximum and then slowly disintegrate. It is essential that the phobic stay put till his fear of it disintegrates.

NOT SURE IF YOU ARE A PHOBIC?

1. Here are some descriptions of the different phobias:

   a) Fear of high places -- Acrophobia
   b) Fear of open places -- Agoraphobia
   c) Fear of closed places -- Claustrophobia
   d) Fear of being alone -- Monophobia
   e) Fear of darkness -- Nyctophobia
   f) Fear of disease -- Pactophobia
   g) Fear of the unknown -- Xenophobia
   h) Fear of animals -- Zoophobia

REFERENCES

Zimbardo Philip G., Psychology and Life 10th Edition, 1979, Scott, Foresman and Company Glenview, Illinois.

Fox Bronwyn, Power over Panic - Freedom from panic/anxiety related disorders, 1997, Longman, Australia.

Bullock Alan & Stallybrass Oliver, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, 1977, Fontana/Collins, Britain.

Quotes from the team at Phobias:

There are two steps in solving a problem.  Believing you can solve the problem and solving the problem.  Once you have established belief you are more than half way there.

You may not always find happiness from your actions, but you will never find happiness from inaction.

Tell us your phobias, and we will tell you what you are afraid of.
Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945)

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

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