Final Version of Research Paper

Phobias: Understanding the cause

In recent study, it states that “An estimated 8.7% of Americans, or 19.2 million people, suffer from a specific phobia. Many people suffer from more than one specific phobia.” Phobias are one of the most common anxiety disorder in United States. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear, which can cause a person to have feeling of dread or panic when they encounter the source of that fear. The fear can be of a particular object, situation or person, which can affect a person's ability to function normally at work or in a social settings. In the face of the thing that triggers fear, phobic experience sweating, racing of the heartbeat, difficulty breathing and even a fear of imminent death all accompanied with the feeling to avoid that fear as much as possible. For every phobia, there is a word that has been coined to describe them. For instance, there's acrophobia or the fear of heights and claustrophobia, fear of enclosed space. The rise in the awareness of this disorder can become a long way for many people who suffer from phobia(s) as well as recognizing the difference between the physical and mental symptoms can help prevent this kind of disorder from affecting us and our love ones.

Most psychologists now assign phobias to one of the two broad categories: Specific phobias, as defined is “the excessive fear of being exposed to certain object, places or situation” (Facts about phobia, 2017) For example, heights, needles, spiders or even something like dentist. While Social phobias also known as social anxiety can be defined as “A condition that causes people to avoid the everyday situations and even other people of being judged or criticized or humiliated or embarrassing them” (Social Anxiety Disorder, 2017). According to the article, it states “A person who suffers from social anxiety tend to think that other people are far better at public speaking or hanging out in a social sociation and mingling with others at a party. The person tend to focus on every little small mistake they do in a social situation, and exaggerate them out of proportion” (Medina, 2017).  Of the two, the specific phobias are the easiest to treat, partly because they are the easiest to understand.

Table 1

The main symptom of a phobia is being more afraid than most people of being around an object, being in a situation, or doing an activity. Many people with phobias would try to avoid that fear as much as possible. Even just the thought of these things can cause stress in people who have phobias. Children usually show their stress by crying, throwing tantrums, freezing, or clinging to someone else. According to Table 1, children between the ages of thirteen to fourteen has a higher lifetime prevalence with this condition, especially females that suffer from phobia(s). Thus, it can be difficult for children to handle their fear. In most severe cases, the individual might also experience psychological symptoms, such as fear of losing control or fear of fainting.

Table 2

 On the other hand, Adults with phobias know that the amount of fear and worry are feeling is due to the fear that they have encounter being hurt by the object, situation, or activity. Children do not understand this about their phobias. As shown in Table 2, this is why adults have the lowest lifetime prevalence (LTP) compare to children with phobias because they are aware of their fears.

Figure 1

Many people with phobias are more afraid of being hurt by the object or situation than they are afraid of the object or situation itself. For instance, a person might be afraid of traveling in an airplane because he or she is worried that the plane will crash. People with phobias might be worried about the following things happening when they are around the object or situation they afraid of: Losing control, sweating, trembling, and shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat. As a result, these symptoms may posed as a difficult for individual and make it unable for people to functioning normally because of their fear. For that reason, treatment is necessary for the patient to get better.

On the other hand, a person with social anxiety might experiencehigh level of fears, nervousness, and sweating, trembling or shaky voice when faced with the intense fear of interacting or talking with strangers. Social anxiety also tend to make things seem worse than what they actually are. In figure 1 we are showing an image of a girl who suffers from social anxiety, and she believes what she is seeing is real as it looks like people are making funny of her.

Social anxiety can even worsen to the point in which a person's quality of life is disturbed. For example, “A worker can turn down a job promotion because he can’t give public presentations. The dread of a social event can begin weeks in advance, and symptoms can be quite debilitating” (Medina, 2017). People with social anxiety are sometimes aware that their feeling are “extreme” and “irrational”. Still, they experience a great deal of dread before facing the feared situation, and they may go out of their away to avoid it. According to Medina, “Even if they manage to confront what they fear, they usually feel very anxious beforehand and are intensely uncomfortable throughout. Afterwards, the unpleasant feelings may linger, as they worry about how they may have been judged or what others may have thought or observed about them"(Medina, 2017). In some rare case, social anxiety may involve a fear of using the public restroom, eating out or drinking or talking on the phone with others are present. Thus, with social anxiety it can become difficult to handle for a lot people and cause much more distress individual in which treatment is soon needed.

Broadly, people with social phobias may turn to alcohol or other drugs much more with people with specific phobias. This unwise and unhealthy choice can lead to abuse of drugs such as alcohol. As a result, phobic individuals may be twice as likely to suffer from alcoholism or addiction as those who have never been phobic. Whereas, with specific phobias it doesn’t pose much as a harm. However, it is still able to cause similar symptoms such as panic/dread when an individual encounter the source of their fear just like people with social anxiety. As shown in couple of these images in figure 2, many people have fears of doing a lot of things in which can bring on a lot of anxiety when they encounter the source of that fear.

Figure 2

                                                                           

Treatments

             Furthermore, the best treatments for any type of phobia would be a form of psychotherapy called exposure therapy. This kind of therapy allows individuals who suffer from phobias are repeatedly expose to the source of that fears and the related thoughts and feelings until they learn to manage their anxiety. For example, if you're afraid of elevators, your therapy may focus first gradually on thinking about getting into an elevator, to looking at pictures

Figure 3

of elevators, until you can finally face your fear and get on the elevator. In  the article, it states " Exposure therapy is very successful when dealing with people who have specific phobias" ( Phobia-Topic Overview, 2017). Therefore, people with fears such as snake or spiders can use this kind of treatment to get better.

            Another kind of therapy is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is also a very effective method for treating phobias as it helps individual identity their fear, and then from this, learn how to cope with the feelings to better help you deal with different problems. According to an article “CBT is one of the leading treatment for patients who suffer from any kind of emotional disorder"( Fourier, 2016). Thus, people who suffer from social anxiety are best treated with this method.

            Many people can even take medications to treat their phobias. As shown in figure 3, many people who suffer from phobias can also take medication to reduce the symptoms such as sedatives. These kind of drugs are called benzodiazepines that helps you relax by reducing the amount of anxiety you feel. But, sedatives should be used with caution because it can become addictive just like any other drug.

            Cause of phobias

Since the late century, it has been generally acknowledged that fear could be learn through our environment. First, by being directly exposure to a traumatic event. For example, “If a child was to fall down a tree, the child may develop a fear of heights in general, acrophobia" (Cherry, 2017) a childhood frights that can stay with a person throughout their adulthood. Second, witnessing a traumatic event, or in simple words (Observational learning experience) can fueling your phobia. When someone fears from specific thing or situation, because of traumatic event of that thing or situation, some others may suffer from phobia from the same thing or situation. For example, “when parents fear from heights or they have tragic experiences on it, which can cause a phobic behavior on individual who grows with them towards heights”(McGill, 2015). Another environment factor can develop a phobia is by hearing or reading about these kinds of situations. For example, “a fear from flying could be caused by repeatedly listening to any news talking about plane crashes”(Kohler, 2017). Therefore, it's possible to develop an irrational fear to anything.

In the “Little Albert Experiment” demonstrated how “Learning as nothing more than the acquisition of new behavior based on environmental conditions.”(Kohler, 2017). In the experiment, psychologist John Watson was able to conditioning an unafraid baby to be afraid of a rat.

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

According to “Albert was a 9-month old baby who had no previously demonstrated any fear of rats at first” (Cherry, 2017).As shown in figure 4, there was no reaction when Watson place the rat before Albert. He then began making a loud noise on several separate occasions that cause Albert to cry to the reaction of the noise. In figure 5, it shows how loud noise made Albert to reaction differently than he had before. Lastly, Watson begun to combine the loud noise he was making to him showing the rat to Albert that after a while, Albert started to cry in response to the rat even without the loud noise. As a result, Albert develop a phobia of rats as shown in figure 6. Thus, showing how fear can be taught through our environment. In the video below, it is the actually experiment that was conducted for this theory:

In Additionally, an interview that was also conduct to prove that phobias can only be develop in our environment. Lorne Jeremy, a psychiatrist that diagnosis and treat people with mental disorders that spoke about how, "The mind detaches the feeling of fear from a traumatic situation. The unconscious mind associates objects with the trauma that they experienced. They can also be learned from other people that have the same fear” (Jeremy, 2017).Undoubtedly, this shows how all phobias are learned by the behavior or actions that are seen in our environment.

There was also another interview, that was conducted between Aaliyah Cownan, a personal victim who has a phobia known as trypophobia or the fear of holes in skin gave her an unpleasant reactions towards them in which she experienced serious migraines and panic attacks. After looking at an object like a sponge or even cheese, she would get “A sentiment uneasiness and irritation over her who body”(Specific phobias, 2017). Therefore, it would be difficult for her to do things that she would normally do. She stated that “When she was a child, she saw a scary movie (Nightmare on Elm Street 4) that cause her develop the phobia that she still has up today,"(Aaliyah Cownan, personal victim, 2017). Therefore, proving how phobias are generally trigger by things we observe in our surroundings.

To conclude, phobias are one of the most common anxiety disorders that a lot of people face these days. Many People who have phobias are unable to act normally in society and do certain activities. Therefore, it would be important for people to become aware and take action in helping people who have phobias, so they can live a happy and healthy life once again.

References

Cherry, K. (n.d.). Afraid of What? Check This List of Strange and Common Phobias. Retrieved March 23, 2017, from https://www.verywell.com/list-of-phobias-2795453

Fourier, D. P. (2006). Treating phobias or treating people? Of acronyms and the social context. Health SA Gesondheid, 11(3), 41+. Retrieved from http://ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_johnjay&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA170582029&asid=85357ca2e5ebe12b16f0e3cabd2ad63d

Kohler, Maxie, et al. "Fears and phobias in children and adolescents." Childhood Education, vol. 90, no. 5, 2014, p. 386+. Academic OneFile, ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_johnjay&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA384340493&asid=486cbaf85ee8a6d4b7e872b0aa88a7e1. Accessed 9 May 2017.

Medina, J. (2017, March 03). Social Anxiety Disorder Symptoms. Retrieved May 11, 2017, from   https://psychcentral.com/disorders/anxiety/social-anixiety-disorder-symptoms.

McGill, N. (2015, May-June). Phobias: learning how to face your fears. The Nation's Health, 45(4), 24. Retrieved from http://ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=cuny_johnjay&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA414135394&asid=af7504ae419aedae33def21ae6597622

    Phobias-Topic Overview.(n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2017 from http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-  panic/tc/phobias-topic-overview#2

Facts About Social Phobia. (n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2017, from http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/facts-about-social-phobia.html

Social Anxiety Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2017, from https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/social-anxiety-disorder

Specific Phobias. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2017, from http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/specific-phobias#2-3

M. (2016, March 19). The Little Albert Experiment. Retrieved May 11, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOyXcbpsXiw

              Aaliyah Cowman(personal victim, April 29, 2017)

               Lorne Jeremy ( psychiatrist, April 29, 2017)