Phobias: what are they, causes and treatment

Almost all of us are afraid of something. Some do not tolerate darkness, others are afraid of heights or depths. But this fear does not always turn into a phobia. Normal healthy fear is dictated by the ancient instinct of self-preservation, survival, and there is nothing abnormal in it. Phobias can change a person's life, limit it, so they definitely need treatment.

Phobias are inexplicable fears of something. This fear in most cases has no sound basis, but it has pronounced signs. From horror, a person loses control over himself, his heart rate increases, the depth of breathing changes, muscle spasms, nausea and vomiting, loss of consciousness, dizziness can be observed. Many phobias are accompanied by attacks of panic attacks.

If a person after an attack is asked about what exactly he is afraid of, then in most cases the answer will be received that there is nothing to be afraid of. The phobes are very well aware of the groundlessness of fear, but they cannot do anything with themselves at the moment of fear and panic. So they find no other way out, how to start avoiding frightening traumatic situations, bypassing them, build your life in such a way as not to see, not listen, not perceive dangerous circumstances, stay as far away from them as possible.

So people with a fear of a confined space refuse to ride in an elevator and always walk on foot, while sociophobes, fearing public condemnation and society as a whole, close within their four walls and lead a hermitic lifestyle.aerophobes travel at any distance only by ground transport, without risking entering airplanes, and nytophobes, who are afraid of the dark, sleep only when the lights are on.

Phobia is called any irrational fear of a person that, to one degree or another, forces him to change his life... Phobias are not considered mental illness in the full sense of the word. They are classified as anxiety personality disorders. But this does not mean that phobias do not need treatment. Avoiding anxious situations can greatly facilitate the existence of a phobia, but cannot eradicate his problem. And every time a person finds himself in certain situations or circumstances, he will experience panic terror, the attacks of which are noticeable even at the physical level.

Phobias gradually make a person hostage, make him make decisions that are not at all the ones he would like to make, force him to give up his dream job, sometimes from creating a family, from communicating with his own kind, from traveling.

It is believed that almost 70% of the world's inhabitants suffer from various phobias, but in a pathological form fears are found only in 8-11% of the population... Asians, Africans and Hispanics, according to research scientists, are less prone to phobic disorders than Europeans and Westerners. Women and children suffer from phobias more often than men.

The sooner the problem is noticed, the better the chances of its complete cure. But true phobias rarely come to psychiatrists and psychotherapists for help at the initial stage of their disorder. And in most cases, a visit to a doctor occurs already when the phobia begins to coexist with other mental disorders, for example, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and sometimes schizophrenia and various manias.

A phobic disorder by itself increases the likelihood of developing other mental problems.

The exact number of phobias that people are exposed to is not known to science. But the lists that exist today include about 300 types of fears from the classic - fear of darkness, height, depth, cramped spaces, death, to very original - fear of mother-in-law, fear of the Pope and kumpunophobia (panic fear of buttons).

The lists of phobic disorders are regularly updated with new ones that correspond to the spirit of the times, for example, imogiphobia - this is a panic fear of using smiles incorrectly in correspondence on the Internet, a fear that the chosen “faces” and “koloboks” will be misunderstood.

Conventionally, people's fears can be divided on health, food, spatial, natural and social alarms. There is also a separate group of phobias - mystical.

The first group is the largest. Basically, it includes all phobias in which a person experiences panic horror at the prospect of getting sick with some particular disease or group of diseases. Such fears may be caused by the fact that the disease was in one of the relatives, in the patient himself before, or by the abundance of frightening information about the disease, which for a particularly impressionable and anxious person may cease to be just information and become a signal of danger.

Here are just a few of the first group of phobias:

• acliophobia - pathological fear of suddenly becoming deaf;
• acnephobia - irrational fear of acne;
• anginophobia - fear of suddenly suffocating;
• apoplexy - fear of cerebral hemorrhage, stroke;
• misophobia - fear of dirt, microbial contamination, infectious diseases, manifested by a pathological attitude towards the purity of one's body and the surrounding space;
• bromohydrophobia - fear that others will smell unpleasant sweat, body odor, manifested in excessive use of deodorants, frequent washing;
• venerophobia - pathological fear of sexually transmitted diseases, which can even lead to a complete rejection of sexual relations, kissing, hugging;
• hemophobia - fear of the sight of blood;
• carcinophobia (carcinophobia) - pathological fear of contracting cancer;
• manophobia - a strong fear of possible mental illness, which, as it seems to the patient, may develop at any time;
• peladophobia - fear of baldness, in which a person treats bald people painfully, tries to avoid contact with them, meetings, and is also overly concerned about the health of his hair;
• jatrophobia - pathological fear of doctors, nurses, often accompanied by a complete refusal of treatment, examinations, visits to medical specialists.

Food phobias stem from a person's beliefs about food and sometimes go beyond reasonable limits. These include fears such as:

• sitophobia - there is a pathological fear in general;
• phagophobia - fear of swallowing so as not to choke;
• chemophobia - fear of chemical additives in food;
• toxicophobia - fear of being poisoned.

The most common phobias in humans are associated with natural phenomena and animals. Fears such as:

• arachnophobia - pathological fear of spiders;
• felinophobia - fear of cats and kittens;
• musophobia - panic horror from the sight of mice, rats;
• kinophobia - fear of dogs of all breeds and sizes;
• herpetophobia - fear of snakes and reptiles.

There are people who are terrified of thunderclaps. They suffer brontophobia... And those who do not go to the forest, pathologically afraid of getting lost in it, are called hylophobes. If the sight of fire causes a panic attack in a person, then his problem is called pyrophobia, and walks with a dosimeter in hand because of fears that the level of radiation will suddenly increase are caused by radiophobia... People who are afraid of the sea are called thalassophobes, and those who cannot raise their head and look into the sky without a panic fear of this action are called uranophobes.

Spatial phobias are well known due to the fact that they are often covered in films and books. For example, claustrophobia - fear of enclosed spaces, inherent in 3-5% of the world's inhabitants to one degree or another, and agoraphobia (panic fear of open areas and crowds) up to 2-3% of people suffer. This also includes fears of large empty spaces. (kenophobia)as well as a fear of very large objects (gigantophobia), fear of falling into tunnels (tunnel telephony) and the fear of crossing the streets (agirophobia).

Social phobias are also a large layer of human anxieties. This includes all fears that are somehow associated with interaction in society. These are the most difficult phobias and the hardest to correct. These include social phobia (fear of society), androphobia (pathological fear of men), autophobia (panic fear of being alone) gamophobia - fear of marriage, kakorrafiophobia - fear of making a mistake, failing, gelotophobia - fear of being ridiculed.

There are phobias associated with personal space within society. So, fear of the unknown (aglosophobia) makes a person almost constantly suspicious of others and be in constant tension and anxiety.

People are afraid of all kinds of things - from electricity and cold to alien invasion (ufophobia)... The fear of a zombie apocalypse has been gaining momentum lately. (kinematophobia), he makes people build bunkers on their own plot, stock up on canned food and batteries for future use.

People are afraid of everything mystical - demonophobia, it is the fear of demons and the devil. Real panic in some is caused by the fear of numbers (both generally accepted, for example, "13", and some personal numbers that are important for a particular person). There are fears of their own shadow, fear of being left without a mobile phone, someone is afraid of mushrooms and vegetables, and someone is afraid of wind and rain.

In any case, fobes see only one option. - eliminate dangerous situations in which they are uncomfortable. Most phobes are very concerned about the opinions of others, they are very anxious and impressionable people who are afraid to make a mistake, to be rejected if someone suddenly becomes aware of their worries and fears. They try to avoid conflicts. They are ready to agree with you that in reality there is absolutely nothing to fear, but in most cases they cannot overcome their fears on their own.

Speaking about the most common fears, it should be noted those phobias that are characteristic of at least 3-5% of the population. And in terms of prevalence, the following phobias can be noted:

• nyphobia - fear of the dark, night, occurs in about eight children out of ten, and in every tenth adult;
• acrophobia - fear of heights, inherent in 8% of the world's population;
• aerophobia - fear of flying on airplanes and other aircraft;
• claustrophobia - horror of cramped and confined spaces is experienced, according to statistics, up to 5% of the world's inhabitants;
• aquaphobia - fear of water to one degree or another - from discomfort when bathing and to a complete rejection of water procedures are experienced by up to 3% of the world's inhabitants;
• ophidiophobia - panic fear of snakes (both real and imaginary) occurs in at least 3% of adults;
• hemophobia (hematophobia) - fear of blood is present in at least two adults out of a hundred;
• thanatophobia - panic horror before physical death;
• glossophobia - fear of speaking publicly in front of an audience (almost everyone has it, but in the form of a phobia - in 3% of adults).

Very important distinguish a phobia from ordinary fearwhich humans experience as a defense mechanism in our brains. A phobia is when you are not just afraid to be alone or to lose a loved one, to find yourself in a completely dark room or to face a solid spider. Phobia is when the described situations cause obvious physical symptoms of panic - breathing and heart rate are disturbed, control over their behavior is completely or to a greater extent lost.

It is rather difficult for a mentally and emotionally healthy person to imagine how one can be afraid, for example, of a keyhole or buttons on clothes, but phobias are very many-sided, and there are quite interesting fears. many of which are still not well understood.

• Gnosiophobia - this is a strong fear of acquiring new knowledge. There are pupils and students on the planet who are not lazy, shirking from classes, but are really afraid of new information that they can receive in lessons and lectures. Fear is presumably associated with the fear not to assimilate, not to understand the essence of information, to be an outcast among their own kind. This form of phobia is often found in Mowgli children who have spent a long time without human society. Even after they adapt to humans, they have a panic-stricken fear of complex new information that they need to assimilate.

• White leaf disease (creative phobia) - the horror experienced by a person in front of whom there is a blank sheet of paper (as an option, a blank sheet is opened on the computer screen). This fear is inherent in people whose activities are related to writing, journalism, poets and teachers. An impressionable creator associates a blank sheet with a lack of thoughts, stupor in the progress of work, which can cause intense anxiety with signs of a panic attack.

• Cumpunophobia - a person experiences pathological horror at the sight of buttons and before the need to perform some actions with them (sew, unfasten, button). Kumpunophobes try to avoid this accessory in their clothes. In a severe form of this phobia, excitement and anxiety may arise at the sight of buttons on the clothes of other people, which, given their prevalence, invariably leads to the fact that the kumpunophobe limits his communication with people, maintaining contact only with those who do not wear items of clothing with buttons ...

• Pogonophobia - panic fear of a beard. This type of fear has been described relatively recently. Such a disorder is manifested by diligent avoidance of bearded men in principle. Your own appearance (if we are talking about a man) will also be important for a pogonophobe. He can shave up to several times a day, fearing that he will show at least the slightest stubble. Pogonophobic women require perfect smoothness of the skin on their face from their man, which can bring him to a real nervous breakdown.

• Lacanophobia - pathological fear of vegetables. Fear can be both in front of a certain vegetable (for example, only in front of turnips or cabbage), and in front of all vegetables in general. Anxiety is heightened at the sight of vegetables. In most cases, the disorder is also accompanied by a refusal to eat them and intolerance not only to the sight, but also to the smell of vegetables.

• Nonophobia - a panic fear of clouds. The cloud does not have a clear shape, it "flows", changes, is in motion, and this can cause quite tangible anxiety. But this disorder is rarely accompanied by panic attacks.

• Omphalophobia - rejection of the navel. People with such a disorder cannot look at their navel or someone else's navel without shuddering. Usually they do not allow anyone and never touch him, and even they themselves can avoid touching this part of the body. Psychiatrists associate the occurrence of such a phobia with perinatal "memory", but there is no single version of the reasons for the development of the disorder.

Phobias are considered rare, which occur in less than 1% of patients with one or another fear. Here are some of these disorders.

• Ablutophobia - panic fear of water procedures, bathing, washing, washing, washing. Ablutophobes are so afraid of such procedures that they try to do without them. In a mild form, the disorder does not prevent a person from at least occasionally being forced to wash or take a shower, but these actions are associated with significant discomfort and even mental suffering for him. Ablutophobes are prone to delirium attacks and loss of consciousness if they feel that contact with water cannot be prevented.

• Papaphobia - fear of the Pope. This is a new disorder that was not previously known about. Today, several cases of panic fear of the name, the image of the head of the Catholic Church, are reported.

• Pantheraphobia - strong fear of mother-in-law or mother-in-law. This is a rare form of phobic disorder, which manifests itself in the fact that it is completely unbearable for a man to communicate with his mother-in-law, and for a woman with her mother-in-law. In this case, we are not talking about disagreements, but precisely about the horror that the pantheraphobe is experiencing. The very prospect of meeting a relative causes nausea, dizziness, changes in blood pressure levels, and can cause loss of self-control.

• Antophobia - fear of flowers. It can manifest itself both in relation to some individual plants, and all flowers in general.Most often, there is a panic horror of plants in pots, which many consider to be real symbols of comfort and beauty. Of the flowers, antophobes are most often afraid of irises, tulips, roses, and also carnations.

• Ailurophobia - fear of cats. For most, the image of cute kittens or graceful cats is pleasant, it evokes positive emotions. But not for the ailurofob or filinophobe. People who are terrified of the mustachioed striped try to avoid situations of meeting these animals, avoid their images. Sometimes fear extends only to the prospect of being attacked by a cat, but sometimes literally everything - from purring to fur - causes horror. The conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte suffered from this disorder.

• Hypnophobia - pathological fear of sleep. A person is afraid to fall asleep for various reasons - either this is the expectation of nightmares, or the fear of dying in a dream, being paralyzed, or being vulnerable and unable to defend himself in the event of an attack in a dream. True hypnophobes can drive themselves to death and madness if they avoid sleep for a long time. Joseph Stalin suffered from this type of disorder to a moderate degree, who was very afraid of dying in his sleep, so he worked hard and for a long time at night.

• Nomophobia - panic fear of being left without a phone. The phobia is still a rare one, but it will soon become common, because it is rapidly progressing, according to experts in the field of psychotherapy. Nomophobes are very dependent on their gadgets. An attack of fear can cause not only the thought of losing or breaking the phone, but also a sudden “dead” battery of the device. Even for a few hours to be left without communication is the most traumatic circumstance that can be in the life of a nomophobe.

• Tetraphobia - fear of the number "4". It is not even the medical side of the issue that is curious, but its cultural component. This number is not feared in Europe, but it is very much feared in Japan, China and both Koreas. The fact is that in almost all Asian languages, the hieroglyph 死, very reminiscent of "4", means "death", and therefore the general fear has led to the fact that there is no fourth floor in houses, hotels and clinics in East Asia, number "4", and the numbering of houses is trying to be done in such a way as to avoid the building with the corresponding serial number.

• Chronophobia - fear of time. This more than strange disorder was first discovered in prisoners who were sentenced to long sentences by the courts. One prospect of a long time, slow passage of time caused them depression, panic, hysterics. The other extreme is the fear of the rapid passage of time and the onset of old age (herascophobia). Geraskophobes cannot normally build their lives, plan, do something, because all their thoughts are occupied with pessimistic thoughts that time is rapidly running out.

According to the existing classification, phobias are called specific, which are isolated in nature, that is, limited to certain situations, circumstances, actions, or directly to some specific objects. This includes almost all phobias about animals (fear of cats or dogs, fear of horses or lizards). An isolated phobia affects only one object - the one who is panicky afraid of cats is not afraid of dogs or frogs.

Fears of heights, darkness, flying by air, visiting public toilets, fears of certain types of food, fear of dentists or sharp objects are considered specific.

All isolated specific phobias are characterized by early appearance - in childhood or adolescence. If untreated, they do not go away on their own, and long-term specific phobias may well progress, and the person will acquire other concomitant mental disorders.

Why a person develops this or that phobia is difficult to say. Until now, scientists and doctors are debating this topic. But there are several concepts that explain the occurrence of such mental disorders. Specialists in the field of biology and medicine tend to believe that phobias can be inherited, but genetics, no matter how hard they tried, did not find certain genes that could be blamed for all the responsibility for human fears.

Therefore, the pedagogical version of inherited phobias sounds more convincing - children simply perceive at face value the vision of the world that is characteristic of their parents. They copy adult behavior patterns, and if a mom is terrified of mice or spiders, there is a high probability that the child will grow up with exactly the same personal fear. A socialophobic parent who is afraid of society and prefers to live in "his own shell" is more likely to pass on information about the "danger" of the outside world to his children, and they have a several times higher risk of developing social anxiety in the future.

There is a fairly convincing version of the development of phobias in connection with a disruption in the level of hormones, which can be both inherited and acquired. In this case, it is believed that the development of phobia is preceded by an increased content of catecholamines in the human body, an excessive amount of adrenaline, and a disruption in the functioning of GABA metabolism receptors.

Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts see phobias as a relic of the past. Fear helped people at the dawn of humanity to survive as a species. If they were not afraid of the darkness, animals, attack, strange unfamiliar food, it is unlikely that humanity would have managed to survive and become a sufficiently developed civilization - they would have perished from cold, hunger, poisoning, the claws and teeth of predators, and would have killed each other in tribal wars. Fear as a protective mechanism is necessary, and today, when many dangers no longer threaten people, it continues to remain (after millions of years of development, it is difficult to get rid of it).

Behavioral therapists are confident that any phobia is the result of an incorrectly fixed reaction of the patient to an external stimulus... In other words, having experienced fear and panic once in a certain situation, a person may develop a close connection between the same situations and the panic itself. If the child is severely scratched by a cat or bitten by a dog, then it is possible that the fear and panic that the child experienced at that moment may become entrenched in relation to the object - to a cat or a dog. In the first case, the development of filinophobia is likely, in the second - cinophobia.

According to this theory, fear almost always has "childish" roots. Even if an adult does not remember some event from his own childhood, which caused him a persistent fear, for example, basements or cockroaches, this does not mean that the event did not take place. The circumstances were forgotten, not preserved in memory, but the existing connection between the panic reaction and a certain object (circumstance) is obvious... A childhood cut can lead to a pathological fear of sharp objects in adulthood (aichmophobia), and watching a fire can lead to a fear of fire (pyrophobia).

The cause of the phobia may be wrong upbringing... If the parents overprotect the child, then the child may well grow up without initiative, unable to make decisions and afraid of any responsibility (hypengiophobia).Constant statements by mom and dad, grandmother or grandfather that dogs are very dangerous can cause kinophobia, and statements that people cannot be trusted can become the basis of persistent social phobia.

Another educational extreme that can also underlie the phobia is ignoring the fears of the child. If the child has no one to share his fears with, there is nowhere to get exhaustive explanations about the irrationality of his fears, if he is simply ignored, paid little attention to him, there is no emotional contact with the parents, then fears quickly take root in the child's consciousness and then it can be difficult or impossible to cope with them. ...

Punishments can trigger phobias - among claustrophobes there are many who were locked in a closet, in a basement, in a closet in childhood, put in a dark corner as punishment, etc. And among agoraphobes there are a lot of those who were lost in the square in childhood , fought off his parents and experienced a strong fear about this.

Phobia can develop in both adults and children under the influence of persistent external information. Fear of attics or basements, terrorists or decompression sickness can develop after watching horror films, thrillers, fear of doctors can become real after receiving a strong impression from the news of a medical error or from a movie in which there was a villain doctor.

The development of phobias affects people who are in disasters, war zones, natural disasters, accidents and accidents. At the same time, the topic and type of phobia usually correspond to the circumstances - aquaphobia often develops in those who survived a flood or drowned, but were saved, hoplophobia (fear of weapons) develops in people who came under fire, were in an area where hostilities took place and etc. People trapped in the rubble are more likely to face claustrophobia in the future.

How to recognize a phobia in yourself or a loved one, how to understand whether there is a mental disorder, or is it about the most common fear inherent in everyone? This question is very important. Therefore, you should know what are the signs of a real phobia. First of all it is an acute attack of fear that appears every time a person encounters certain circumstances or objects.

During contact with a frightening circumstance or object, a person experiences a narrowing of consciousness and perception. At this moment, the whole world is limited only by this circumstance, and therefore it is impossible to be distracted by something else, nothing else exists in the world for a fob at this moment.

The brain quickly launches chains of reactions and autonomic reactions occur - control over its own actions is lost, breathing becomes more frequent, it becomes superficial, shallow, heart rate increases, a large amount of sweat is released, the mouth dries up due to the cessation of secretion of the salivary glands, dizziness occurs, weakness appears in the legs. The person may lose consciousness.

Usually, the first manifestations of a phobia are associated with severe fear and panic, in subsequent relapses are marked by an increase in the level of fear. In order to somehow make life easier for himself, a person begins to avoid possible "dangerous" situations for him, and this avoidance is fixed as a distinctive feature of behavior.If you see someone who diligently wipes their hands with a damp cloth after each handshake or constantly checks the freshness of their breath, you can rest assured that obsessive patterns of behavior in this case are signs of a certain phobia in a person (in the first case, mesophobia, and in the second - halitophobia).

If the fear is so “exotic” that it is easy to avoid it in the future (for example, the inhabitant of the north is afraid of large tropical spiders, which cannot be found in the north for obvious natural reasons), then repeated attacks may not occur for years. But this is not a cure, but only the illusion of victory over the problem. Should a northerner-arachnophobe accidentally see an image of a tarantula or unsuccessfully switch the TV and get on a program about wildlife, where they talk about the spiders of Africa or Australia, he can experience a severe attack of horror, panic with all the conclusions following from a panic attack.

Phobes plan their actions very carefully... With fear of crossing the street, a person will think over alternative routes a hundred times to get to the destination. If there are no such routes, then he may refuse to go there altogether.

The danger of a phobia lies in the fact that a person's life suffers significantly, undergoes changes that prevent him from living freely and calmly, communicating, working, traveling. But this is not the only reason why phobias are recommended not to be suppressed, but to be treated. If a phob often finds himself in an alarming environment (he lives in the center of a big city with fear of streets and squares, or suffers from pediophobia - fear of children), then the likelihood increases that he will try to drown out his fears with drugs, alcohol, psychotropic substances.

That is why there are many alcoholics, drug addicts, people who are addicted to tranquilizers among the phobes, etc.

There is no cure for fast-acting panic attacks. Drug treatment is generally not very effective for phobias, so modern psychiatrists and psychotherapists try to prescribe medications only in extreme cases, giving preference to antidepressants (tranquilizers simply suppress the perception of fear, cause strong dependence and do not treat the root cause in any way). If a decision is made to prescribe medications, then they are recommended exclusively in short courses with long breaks.

The most effective method for overcoming phobic disorders today is considered cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. It is a rather lengthy and painstaking collaboration between a patient and a doctor. First, there is an identification of specific situations and objects that cause terror. Then the specialist begins to help the person create new attitudes that emphasize the erroneousness of the old ones and help to take a fresh look at what seemed terrible and nightmarish yesterday. At this stage, hypnosis and NLP can be applied.

Then the person is gradually immersed in stressful situations. First, into those that initially caused the least fear, and then into the most powerful nightmares. The dive is monitored by a doctor at every stage. This helps the person to change their perception of the scary situation and take it calmly. The therapy is combined with relaxation techniques, especially deep muscle relaxation techniques.

Psychoanalysts are looking for a deep inner conflict of a person, which led to an external manifestation - panic. They raise childhood memories, fears, dreams, images and find the "problem link" that triggered the fear of something.Then this link is corrected.

Today they also use the possibilities of virtual reality, using augmented reality glasses and virtual worlds specially created for phobes for therapy of fears.

The prognosis of cure directly depends on how interested the patient is in getting rid of his anxiety and panic. The most effective treatment is in which the patient cooperates with the doctor, fulfills all his recommendations, takes the prescribed drugs on time, does not allow self-medication and does not miss psychotherapy sessions.

Also, for the duration of treatment, a person must give up alcohol, drugs and other bad habits. It will be good if someone close to you is there - to support and help to appreciate the intermediate results that can be achieved. Sometimes it is recommended keep a diary of observations of your emotions.

For what phobias really are, see the next video.