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
A phobia is an excessive and irrational fear reaction. If you have a phobia, you may experience a deep sense of dread or panic when you encounter the source of your fear. The fear can be of a certain place, situation, or object. Unlike general anxiety disorders, a phobia is usually connected to something specific
What are phobias?
Phobias are a group of disorders in which patient feels exaggerated fear from an object, situation or situations. Exposure to those situations results in intense anxiety and there is strong wish to avoid that object/situation.
What are different types of phobias?
1. Simple phobia: in these there is fear from one object/situation e.g., spider phobia, height phobia, phobia of closed spaces (claustrophobia) 2. Social Phobia (social anxiety disorder) is fear from social situations. 3. Agoraphobia is fear from leaving home; be in places where you cannot escape without attracting others attention, fear of travelling and going to market.
My sister is house bound. She never goes out and gets very anxious when she is expected to leave home. As long as she is at home she is calm and happy. She was diagnosed as suffering from Agoraphobia. What is treatment of this condition?
She needs full psychiatric assessment to confirm her diagnosis. Treatment includes anti phobic medication and psychological treatment, which is anxiety management training, and graded exposure.
What is graded exposure?
It is exposure of patient to anxiety provoking situation in small steps. For example 1st step for patient of agoraphobia would be to go just outside the main door. Walking a few yards in the street may follow this. After every step patient is allowed to recover from anxiety.
What are symptoms of Social phobia?
In social phobia person gets anxious when he has to attend social situation e.g., party. He tends to avoid going to such situations and often makes excuses. He gets very anxious on arrival and avoids speaking or eating in front of people. The most common fears associated with the disorder are a fear of speaking in public or to strangers, a fear of meeting new people, and performance fears (activities that may potentially be embarrassing), such as writing, working, eating or drinking in public.
Tell me more about Agoraphobia?
Agoraphobia develops often, but not always, with panic disorder. Agoraphobia is a fear of having a panic attack in a place from which escape is difficult, such as public transport or using a lift. Many people with agoraphobia refuse to leave their homes, often for years at a time. Others develop a fixed route, or territory, from which they cannot deviate, for example the route between home and work.
