Common phobias

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These common phobias will often involve the environment, animals, fear of injections and blood, as well as some specific situations. The following article will focus on common phobias and ways to defuse your phobia.

What is an obsession or obsession? And what exactly do people fear most? Are there any phobias that tend to be more common with others? Phobias often lead to fear and obvious symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and shortness of breath. Phobias are the most common mental illness in women and the second most common in men. These phobias will usually appear during childhood or adolescence and continue into adulthood. There are several explanations for why phobias develop, including evolutionary and behavioral theories. Whatever the cause, phobias are treatable conditions that can be minimized and even eliminated with cognitive, behavioral, and pharmacological treatment techniques.

1. What is an obsession or obsession?

Fear is practically a tool that protects us from dangers. It can be thought of as a form of self-defense. According to statistics, more than 19 million Americans suffer from a phobia - an intense, irrational fear of being faced with a certain situation, activity, or object. With a phobia, you may know that your anxiety and fear are not worth it, but you can't stop your emotions. And they can be so intense that they almost paralyze you.
Hundreds of different phobias have been identified, including phobias or phobias or phobias of unrealistic things. But when it comes to agoraphobia, a type of anxiety disorder, experts divide them into three categories - agoraphobia, an intense anxiety in public places where it can be difficult to get rid of; social phobia, fear and avoidance of social situations; and specific phobia, an irrational fear of specific objects or situations.
A person is afraid of anything new and they form a new phobia. Somewhere, you can find someone with phartophobia, the irrational fear of passing gas in public. Someone with odontiatophobia will try to avoid going to the dentist. And a spargarophobic individual would panic over a plate of asparagus.

agoraphobia causes people to change their way of life to avoid the object of their fear. But their lives are also affected by their efforts to hide their obsession from others. Some people with agoraphobia have problems with friends and family, fail at school, or lose a job while struggling to cope.
Alcoholics are 10 times more likely to have phobias than non-alcoholics. And alcoholics may be twice as likely to become addicted to alcohol than people who have never been addicted to alcohol.
Although phobias can be culturally influenced and caused by life events, they tend to run in families. Immediate family members of people with phobias are about three times more likely to develop phobias than those with no family history at all.

2. Common Obsessions

2.1. Agoraphobia – fear of public places The name of agoraphobia comes from Agora - a market and meeting place in ancient Greece. This is an extremely crowded market that makes many people feel afraid that they will get lost in this market. Agoraphobia affects women twice as often as men. If left untreated and allowed to get serious, it can make someone even afraid of even the house they live in.
2.2. Social Phobia – Shyness A person with social anxiety disorder is not just shy. The person feels extreme anxiety and fear about how they will perform in a social situation. Are their actions appropriate for others? Can other people tell they're nervous? Words will have when it's time to talk? Because untreated social phobia often leads to social avoidance, it can have a major negative impact on a person's relationships and professional life.
2.3. Claustrophobia Claustrophobia, an unusual fear of being in enclosed spaces, is a common specific form of phobia. A person with claustrophobia cannot walk in elevators or go through tunnels without anxiety or even extreme fear. Fearing suffocation or being trapped, the person avoids tight spaces and often engages in "safety-seeking behavior," such as opening a window or sitting near an exit. However, in reality, this only makes them feel more accepting of their surroundings, not reducing their fear.

2.4. Zoophobia The most common specific type of phobia is the fear of animals. Acrophobia is actually a general term that covers a group of phobias related to specific animals. For example arachnophobia - fear of spiders; ophidiophobia - fear of snakes; ornithophobia - fear of birds and apiphobia - fear of bees. Such phobias often develop during childhood and sometimes disappear as the child grows older. But they can persist into adulthood.
2.5. Brontophobia The Greek word bronte means thunder and brontophobia means fear of thunder. While people with agoraphobia may realize thunder won't hurt them, they may refuse to go outdoors during a thunderstorm. They can even hide inside the house by hiding behind a couch or hiding in a closet waiting for the storm to pass. The unusual fear of both thunder and lightning is known as astraphobia, a fear that occurs not only in humans but also in animals.
2.6. Acrophobia Acrophobia is characterized by severe anxiety when climbing. A person can develop a phobia of heights with just a few actions, such as walking up stairs or climbing ladders. Sometimes the fear is so great that a person cannot move. Acrophobia can create a dangerous situation for sufferers by causing them to lose their balance and fall down even a few steps
2.7. Aerophobia People with agoraphobia are very afraid of flying when they have to fly. A phobia often develops after a person has had a traumatic experience related to an aircraft, such as going through a great storm or witnessing another passenger panic. Even after the incident is forgotten, the fear persists and can even flare up while watching a plane crash movie on TV. Hypnotherapy is often used to identify the initial trauma and treat the phobia.
2.8. Fear of injections, fear of blood, fear of trauma There is a wide range of phobias about blood, injections and trauma including hemophobia and trypanophobia (fear of being injected). Some people have a fear of injury, and others have a fear of invasive medical procedures. These obsessions can cause the patient to faint.

2.9. Triskaidekaphobia is an unusual fear of anything related to the number 13. If the thought of ghosts causes a person to worry excessively, they may have phasmophobia. And despite the fact that vampires are not real, some people are still terrified of bats. Their phobia is called chiratophobia.
2.10. Emetophobia Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting that is unnatural and often begins early in life as a result of some trauma. For example, someone may have witnessed a classmate vomiting in public or have done so themselves. Anxiety can be triggered by the thought of wanting to vomit or by thinking of a place, such as a hospital, where vomiting often occurs. As with agoraphobia, hypnotherapy is often used as part of treatment.
Fear is a defense mechanism of the body but phobia is a disease that needs to be treated. Desensitization, also known as exposure therapy, is a gradual process that exposes a person with a phobia to situations similar to what they fear. Over time, the fear will lessen as the person builds confidence. This is often accompanied by talk therapy to help the person change the way they think and develop new response patterns to situations that may trigger the emotions associated with the phobia. The good news for people with various fears is that treatment for this condition often yields very positive results.

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References: webmd.com, msdmanuals.com