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A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by an irrational, unrealistic, persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed. If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress. Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in blood or injury phobia, and panic attacks, often found in agoraphobia and emetophobia. Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias.
Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physical and cognitive symptoms, such as restlessness, irritability, easy fatigue, difficulty concentrating, increased heart rate, chest pain, abdominal pain, and a variety of other symptoms that may vary based on the individual.
Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, unreasonable, and irrational fear associated with a specific object, situation, or concept which poses little or no actual danger. Specific phobia can lead to avoidance of the object or situation, persistence of the fear, and significant distress or problems functioning associated with the fear. A phobia can be the fear of anything.
Claustrophobia is a fear of confined spaces. It is triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms with a lock on the outside, small cars, and tight-necked clothing can induce a response in those with claustrophobia. It is typically classified as an anxiety disorder, which often results in panic attacks. The onset of claustrophobia has been attributed to many factors, including a reduction in the size of the amygdala, classical conditioning, or a genetic predisposition to fear small spaces.
Ergophobia is described as an extreme and debilitating fear associated with work, a fear of finding or losing employment, or fear of specific tasks in the workplace. The term ergophobia comes from the Greek "ergon" (work) and "phobos" (fear).
Aquaphobia is an irrational fear of water.
Necrophobia is a specific phobia, the irrational fear of dead organisms as well as things associated with death. With all types of emotions, obsession with death becomes evident in both fascination and objectification. In a cultural sense, necrophobia may also be used to mean a fear of the dead by a cultural group, e.g., a belief that the spirits of the dead will return to haunt the living.
Emetophobia is a phobia that causes overwhelming, intense anxiety pertaining to vomit. This specific phobia can also include subcategories of what causes the anxiety, including a fear of vomiting or being vomited on or seeing others vomit. Emetophobes might also avoid the mentions of "barfing", vomiting, "throwing up", or "puking."
Fear of the dark is a common fear or phobia among toddlers, children and, to a varying degree, adults. A fear of the dark does not always concern darkness itself; it can also be a fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by darkness. Most toddlers and children outgrow it, but this fear persists for some with scotophobia and anxiety. When waking up or sleeping, these fears may intertwine with sighting sleep paralysis demons in some people. Some degree of fear of the dark is natural, especially as a phase of child development. Most observers report that fear of the dark rarely appears before the age of two years and roughly peaks around the development stage of four years of age. When fear of the dark reaches a degree that is severe enough to be considered pathological, it is sometimes called scotophobia, or lygophobia.
Phobophobia is a phobia defined as the fear of phobias, or the fear of fear, including intense anxiety and unrealistic and persistent fear of the somatic sensations and the feared phobia ensuing. Phobophobia can also be defined as the fear of phobias or fear of developing a phobia. Phobophobia is related to anxiety disorders and panic attacks directly linked to other types of phobias, such as agoraphobia. When a patient has developed phobophobia, their condition must be diagnosed and treated as part of anxiety disorders.
Cynophobia is the fear of dogs and canines in general. Cynophobia is classified as a specific phobia, under the subtype "animal phobias". According to Timothy O. Rentz of the Laboratory for the Study of Anxiety Disorders at the University of Texas, animal phobias are among the most common of the specific phobias and 36% of patients who seek treatment report being afraid of dogs or afraid of cats. Although ophidiophobia or arachnophobia are more common animal phobias, cynophobia is especially debilitating because of the high prevalence of dogs and the general ignorance of dog owners to the phobia. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) reports that only 12% to 30% of those with a specific phobia will seek treatment.
In psychology, desensitization is a treatment or process that diminishes emotional responsiveness to a negative, aversive, or positive stimulus after repeated exposure. Desensitization can also occur when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked when the action tendency associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary. The process of desensitization was developed by psychologist Mary Cover Jones and is primarily used to assist individuals in unlearning phobias and anxieties. Joseph Wolpe (1958) developed a hierarchal list of anxiety-evoking stimuli in order of intensity, which allows individuals to undergo adaptation. Wolpe's "reciprocal inhibition" desensitization process is based on well-known psychology theories such as Hull's "drive-reduction" theory and Sherrington's concept of "reciprocal inhibition." Although medication is available for individuals with anxiety, fear, or phobias, empirical evidence supports desensitization with high rates of cure, particularly in clients with depression or schizophrenia.
Exposure therapy is a technique in behavior therapy to treat anxiety disorders. Exposure therapy involves exposing the patient to the anxiety source or its context. Doing so is thought to help them overcome their anxiety or distress. Numerous studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in the treatment of disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and specific phobias.
Social anxiety is the anxiety and fear specifically linked to being in social settings. Some categories of disorders associated with social anxiety include anxiety disorders, mood disorders, autism spectrum disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Individuals with higher levels of social anxiety often avert their gazes, show fewer facial expressions, and show difficulty with initiating and maintaining a conversation. Social anxiety commonly manifests itself in the teenage years and can be persistent throughout life; however, people who experience problems in their daily functioning for an extended period of time can develop social anxiety disorder. Trait social anxiety, the stable tendency to experience this anxiety, can be distinguished from state anxiety, the momentary response to a particular social stimulus. Half of the individuals with any social fears meet the criteria for social anxiety disorder. Age, culture, and gender impact the severity of this disorder. The function of social anxiety is to increase arousal and attention to social interactions, inhibit unwanted social behavior, and motivate preparation for future social situations.
Gerascophobia is an abnormal or incessant fear of growing older or ageing (senescence). Fear is characterised as an unpleasant emotion experienced as a result of some perceived threat or source of danger, in the case of gerascophobia that threat is ageing. This fear is irrational and disproportionate to any threat posed and persists even in the case that the individual is in perfect health.
Thalassophobia is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean, seas, or lakes. Though related, thalassophobia should not be confused with aquaphobia, which is classified as the fear of water itself. Thalassophobia can include fears of being in deep bodies of water, the vastness of the sea, sea waves, aquatic animals, and great distance from land.
Spotligectophobia, scopophobia, scoptophobia or ophthalmophobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by an excessive fear of being stared at in public or stared at by others.
Myrmecophobia is the inexplicable fear or hatred for ants. It is a type of specific phobia. It is common for those who suffer from myrmecophobia to also have a wider fear of insects in general, as well as spiders. Such a condition is known as entomophobia. This fear can manifest itself in several ways, such as a fear of ants contaminating a person's food supply, or fear of a home invasion by large numbers of ants. The term myrmecophobia comes from the Greek μύρμηξ, myrmex, meaning "ant" and φόβος, phóbos, "fear".
Safety behaviors are coping behaviors used to reduce anxiety and fear when the user feels threatened. An example of a safety behavior in social anxiety is to think of excuses to escape a potentially uncomfortable situation. These safety behaviors, although useful for reducing anxiety in the short term, might become maladaptive over the long term by prolonging anxiety and fear of nonthreatening situations. This problem is commonly experienced in anxiety disorders. Treatments such as exposure and response prevention focus on eliminating safety behaviors due to the detrimental role safety behaviors have in mental disorders. There is a disputed claim that safety behaviors can be beneficial to use during the early stages of treatment.
Submechanophobia is a fear of submerged human-made objects, either partially or entirely underwater. These objects could be shipwrecks, statues, sea mines, animatronics as seen in theme parks, or old buildings, but also more mundane items such as buoys, chains, and miscellaneous debris.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Mysophobia (Germophobia): Causes, Symptoms & Treatment". Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved 2023-03-31.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Samra, Chandan K.; Abdijadid, Sara (2023), "Specific Phobia", StatPearls, Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, PMID 29763098 , retrieved 2023-03-31
- ↑ Hammond, William Alexander; Morton, William J. (William James) (1879). Neurological contributions. unknown library. New York, G. P. Putnam's sons.
- 1 2 Bajwa, Munaza; Chaudhry, Kalsoom; Saeed, Ramsha (December 2014). "PREVALENCE AND FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH PHOBIAS AMONG WOMEN" (PDF). ASEAN Journal of Psychiatry. 15 (2): 140–145.
- 1 2 3 Robinson, Jake M.; Cameron, Ross; Jorgensen, Anna (2021-06-30). "Germaphobia! Does Our Relationship With and Knowledge of Biodiversity Affect Our Attitudes Toward Microbes?". Frontiers in Psychology. 12: 678752. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.678752 . ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 8278522 . PMID 34276497.
- ↑ μύσος Archived 2021-02-24 at the Wayback Machine , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
- ↑ φόβος Archived 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
- ↑ "It's No Coincidence That Hitler Was a Germaphobe". Big Think. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
- ↑ MacFarquhar, Neil (30 December 2006). "Saddam Hussein, defiant dictator who ruled Iraq with violence and fear, dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 February 2024.
- ↑ Thomas, Sarah (2014-03-24). "Famous Germaphobes". NHPR. New Hampshire Public Radio. Archived from the original on 2019-11-14. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
- ↑ Lippman, Daniel (July 7, 2019). "The Purell presidency: Trump aides learn the president's real red line". Politico. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
