characteristics of phobias

Question 1

introduction-phobias

Answer 1

• Anxiety Disorder
• Excessive/irrational fear and anxiety, triggered by an object or a situation.
• The extent of the fear is completely out of all proportion to the actual stimulus.
• Conscious avoidance of the stimulus.

Question 2

types of phobias

Answer 2

• Specific Phobias
• Fears about specific objects or situations.
• Spiders | snakes | the dark

• Social Phobia
• Anxiety relating to social situations.
• Public speaking / taking to a group of people | using a public toilet.

• Agoraphobia
• A fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult or that help wouldn’t be available if things go wrong.-have the say fear of being outside aswell

Question 3

characteristics of phobias

Answer 3

behavioural, emotional, cognitive

Question 4

behavioural characteristics of phobias

Answer 4

We respond to things or situations we fear by behaving in particular ways. We respond by feeling high levels of anxiety and trying to escape. The fear responses in phobias are the same as we experience for any other fear even if the level of fear is irrational - out of all proportion to the phobic stimulus.

Panic
A person with a phobia may panic in response to the presence of the phobic stimulus. Panic may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming or running away. Children may react slightly differently, for example by freezing, clinging or having a tantrum.

Avoidance
Unless the person is making a conscious effort to face their fear they tend to go to a lot of effort to prevent coming into contact with the phobic stimulus. This can make it hard to go about daily life.
For example, someone with a fear of public toilets may have to limit the time they spend outside the home in relation to how long they can last without a toilet. This in turn can interfere with work, education and a social life.

Endurance
The alternative behavioural response to avoidance is endurance. This occurs when the person chooses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus. For example a person with arachnophobia might choose to remain in a room with a spider on the ceiling and keep a wary eye on it rather than leaving.

Question 5

emotional characteristics of phobias

Answer 5

Anxiety
Phobias are classed as anxiety disorders. By definition then they involve an emotional response of anxiety, an unpleasant state of high arousal. This prevents a person relaxing and makes it very difficult to experience any positive emotion. Anxiety can be long term.

Fear
Although in everyday speech we might use the terms ‘anxiety’ and ‘fear’ interchangeably they do have distinct meanings. Fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about a phobic stimulus. It is usually more intense but experienced for shorter periods than anxiety.

Emotional response is unreasonable
The anxiety or fear is much greater than is ‘normal’ and disproportionate to any threat posed. For example, a person with arachnophobia will have a strong emotional response to a tiny spider. Most people would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisonous spider.

Question 6

cognitive characteristics of phobias

Answer 6

The cognitive element is concerned with the ways in which people process information.
People with phobias process information about phobic stimuli differently from other objects or situations.

Selective attention to the phobic stimulus
If a person can see the phobic stimulus it is hard to look away from it. Keeping our attention on something really dangerous is a good thing as it gives us the best chance of reacting quickly to a threat, but this is not so useful when the fear is irrational. A person with pogonophobia will struggle to concentrate on what they are doing if there is someone with a beard in the room.

Irrational beliefs
A person with a phobia may hold unfounded thoughts in relation to phobic stimuli, i.e. that can’t easily be explained and don’t have any basis in reality. For example, social phobias can involve beliefs like I must always sound intelligent’ or if I blush people will think l’m weak. This kind of belief increases the pressure on the person to perform well in social situations.

Cognitive distortions
The perceptions of a person with a phobia may be inaccurate and unrealistic. So, for example, someone with mycophobia sees mushrooms as disgusting, and an ophidiophobic may see snakes as alien and aggressive-looking.