Phobias : Behavioral, Emotional and Cognitive Characteristics

Question 1

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias? Describe them

Answer 1

Avoidance : when faced with what creates fear, the response is to avoid it. This can interfere with the person’s normal daily life and cause distress.

Freeze / Faint : the normal response is fight or flight, however people with phobias may freeze or faint instead. Freezing is so the predator might think they’re dead and leave them alone

Disruption of functioning : anxiety and avoidance created by the phobia might be so extreme that this could interfere with the persons ability to function socially or at work

Panic : they may panic in the presence of the stimulus. This may lead to crying, screaming, running away or freezing.
Panic

Question 2

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias? Describe them

Answer 2

Fear : persistent, excessive and unreasonable fear may be felt in the presence of the stimulus and this can be long lasting.

Panic and anxiety : they will feel highly anxious and experience unpleasant negative feelings.

Emotions : strong emotions that are often out of proportion to the actual danger that us posed is felt.

Question 3

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias? Describe them

Answer 3

Irrational : they will often think in an irrational manner about their phobia and resist rational counter arguments.

Insight : they know their fear is excessive or unreasonable, but still fear the object / situation

Cognitive distortion : they will have a distorted perception of the stimulus

Selective attention : they can’t look away from it and focus all their attention on it. They ignore everything else.