Fears and Phobias

What are Fears and Phobias?

At the most basic level, fears and phobias are just something that make you feel "unusual" about a situation. You know that it is irrational, that it doesn't make "sense" to feel that way, but you still feel a bit weird about the situation. Some common examples are nervousness about making a business presentation, dread about making a best man's speech, the "need" to sleep with the light on (especially if you're an adult…), or a fear of spiders, insects etc.

For the majority of people, these are minor inconveniences and are dealt with without causing much damage to a person's life.

On the contrary, there are another group of individuals who find that their fears and phobias are causing havoc in their day to day lives, preventing them from taking opportunities or simply from living enjoying their lives to the fullest extent. This highlights the range of severity that fears and phobias can cause in life.

A person may feel a little uncomfortable about taking a trip on a plane for a foreign holiday, but will still face up to it and fly because of the benefits gained from doing so. Quite often, people will turn to substances to make the journey more tolerable e.g. having a little "dutch courage" before a flight. However, another person with a fear of flying may never take a foreign holiday, or an internal flight, and may even turn down fantastic employment opportunities because of the travel requirements involved. At this point, it is clear that the severity of the fear or phobia is much higher, indeed in the most severe cases of Agoraphobia an individual may never leave their home and become socially withdrawn and fearful.

We hope that this emphasises the fact that everyone can suffer from fears and phobias in different ways and to many different extents, but we can reassure you that all of these are treatable.

Here is a useful article from the NHS on fears and phobias: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/phobias/pages/introduction.aspx

Fears and Phobias: A Short Video

Fears and Phobias: Most Common Experiences

• Fear of Needles - Aichmophobia                           [LINK]
• Emetophobia - Fear of Being Sick                          [LINK]
• Fear of Being Judged - Social Anxiety                  [LINK]
• Fear of Flying - Aviophobia                                       [LINK]
• Fear of Dentists - Ondontophobia                        [LINK]
• Fear of Public Speaking - Glossophobia              [LINK]

Believe it or not, there is even a Phobia of Phobias called "Phobophobia [LINK]".

Fears and Phobias: What Therapies Can Help?

What Causes Fears and Phobias

We would suggest that there are potentially three underlying causes of a fear or phobia:  

1.       The "Life Experience" cause i.e. where you have had a very negative experience surrounding the phobic item e.g. been bitten by a dog, or crashed a car and this has become stuck in your mind as a subconscious (and perfectly reasonable, and understandable) response;

2.       The "Hidden Experience" cause i.e. where you have experienced something in your past that your mind has not processed, or has processed in an inappropriate way, and this manifests itself as a fear or phobia around something else … hoping that you will resolve the underlying issue; and

3.       "Anticipatory Anxiety" i.e. you have a certain thinking style that leads you to worry about everything and causes anxiety about situations, as opposed to the thing that you are worrying about being the cause.

The common trait throughout these is that they are all caused by your thought processes, and therefore are all completely changeable. By coming along for a consultation, or a discovery session, we can discuss your fear or phobia in more detail and identify the most appropriate treatment protocol.