Phobias

A phobia is an irrational fear of an object or a situation that causes overwhelming feelings of anxiety.  Common simple phobias include spiders, dogs, flying or dentists. Phobias can cause a great deal of distress and major disruption to people's lives.  When severe it can bring on symptoms such as nausea, feeling faint or shortness of breath and sometimes it can bring on a panic attack.

 

Most simple phobias are developed in childhood. They can develop from a traumatic childhood experience such as being bitten by a dog.   A phobia can also be a learned response from observing the behaviour of parents or guardians.  If your Mother screamed every time she saw a spider when you were a child, you may have developed a spider phobia too.  This conditioned response was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. In the 1890's, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, showed how dogs could learn to salivate to the sound of a bell when food was put out and how eventually the dogs salivated when hearing the bell only.  

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Some people may develop a phobia following a panic attack and research suggests some people are more genetically prone to developing phobias than others. Agoraphobia and sociophobia are termed complex phobias because they impact people's lives in many ways. A sociophobic may have a fear of going to the shops or going to work or even joining family celebrations. Interestingly, some phobias may actually be a fear of something linked to something else such as a fear of travelling on a train can stem from a fear of going to work.