Phobias

Question 1

What is a phobia?

Answer 1

A persistent and irrational fear of a particular stimulus or situation, which causes high levels of anxiety and interferes with normal living

Question 2

What are the three categories of phobia recognised by the DSM-5?

Answer 2

1. Specific phobia – fear of a specific object or situation
2. Social phobia – fear of social situations
3. Agoraphobia – fear of being trapped in a public place where escape is difficult

Question 3

What three types of characteristics can we use to identify the symptoms of a phobia?

Answer 3

1. Emotional (how it makes you feel)
2. Cognitive (how it makes you think)
3. Behavioural (how it makes you act)

Question 4

What are the symptoms of Behaviour in a phobia?

Answer 4

Panic – may involve a range of behaviours such as crying, screaming or running away

Avoidance – the immediate response is prevent coming into contact with the phobic stimulus; this can make it hard to go about daily life as the person makes a conscious effort to avoid their fear

Endurance – the alternative response to avoidance that occurs when a person chooses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus, e.g. a person with a fear of spiders may choose to remain in a room with a spider on the ceiling and keep a wary eye on it rather than leaving

Question 5

What are the symptoms of Emotional in a phobia?

Answer 5

Anxiety – phobias are categorised as anxiety disorders, which therefore involve an emotional response of an unpleasant state of high arousal; this response prevents a person relaxing and makes it very difficult to experience any positive emotions

Persistent fear – this is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about a phobic stimulus; it’s usually more intense but experienced for shorter periods than anxiety

Unreasonable emotional response – anxiety/fear is much greater than is ‘normal’ and disproportionate to any threat posed, e.g. a person with arachnophobia will have a strong emotional response to a tiny spider whereas most people would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisonous spider

Question 6

What are the symptoms of Cognitive in a phobia?

Answer 6

Irrational beliefs – may have unfounded thoughts in relation to phobic stimuli that cannot be easily explained and do not have any basis in reality, e.g. social phobias can involve beliefs like ‘I must always sound intelligent’ or ‘if I blush people will think I’m weak

Cognitive distortions – the perceptions of a person with a phobia may be inaccurate and unrealistic, e.g. someone with mycophobia sees mushrooms as disgusting and an ophidiophobic may see snakes as alien and aggressive-looking

Selective attention to phobic stimulus – if sufferer can see the phobic stimulus it is hard to look away from it; this is ordinarily a good thing if it is something dangerous as it gives us the best chance of reacting quickly to a threat, but it is not useful when the fear is irrational