About Fears & Phobias:

According to the Cambridge Dictionary a phobia is an extreme fear of a particular thing or situation, especially one that cannot be reasonably explained. An example of this might be ‘I've got a phobia about/of worms’, which does have its own title for anyone that might be interested.

In doing some research into Phobias in which there are hundreds of things that one can have a phobia about and being interested in lists I came across a website that appears to list every single one, in fact they ask you to contact them if you have a phobia and it is not on their list.

Simple website to find www.phobialist.com and in counting the number of phobias listed under ‘A’ alone there were 68!  I could not find one that mentioned a phobia about writing about phobias though, perhaps I should contact them?

Ok that is what a phobia is but how does it start? A phobia can start in a number of ways. One might be when a mother sees her little boy climbing up a tree and she might shout up to him ‘Be careful you might fall’ so she is transmitting her fear of his falling into and developing his fear of ‘heights being unsafe’ and he might fall.

His phobia might develop into a ‘fear of heights’ but not, interestingly a phobia of ‘climbing trees’.  More men than women seem to suffer with a fear of heights, perhaps because they are more into ‘Being in Control’?

Generally in all young animals, birds and babies there is an inbuilt fear of heights with a few exceptions like young animals that need to be high for their survival. Another example of fear of heights is for birds that they do not leave the nest until they are ready to fly; although perhaps this might be more accurate in saying that there fear is leaving the nest before they have developed wings that can fly them safely or a fear of falling.

In many cases when a client comes to me with a fear of flying and they would like this fixed as they would now like to see other parts of the world and have a fantastic holiday, yes they have a fear of flying but there could be about 50 other fears within that one fear like the fear of doing up a seat belt, the pilot dying, the plane crashing etc. generally the biggest fear is ‘Losing Control’. 

More often than not a phobia can start with a small concern, growing into a worry and building to a full blown phobia which can have a negative effect on their life as the phobia takes over and stops them from doing something that might in fact be enjoyable. For race goers the horse is falling at the first fence.  An example of this might be the mother who has a fear of spiders, which she may have picked up from her mother or perhaps she was teased by one as a child while her brother was hanging off a tree. 

Anyway where was I? Oh yes picking up the concern from the mother and the child thinking ‘Oh no this is something BAD that I have to be scared about’. Now the child at this stage may not be exactly sure of what she should be scared of as the mother did not say why to be scared. But the child being a child has a great imagination and starts to think ‘perhaps I should be scared about the legs or the body or the eyes or it moving so quickly’. 

So an old phobia is born in a new child. The child grows up into a beautiful young woman, meets the man of her mothers dreams and she is unable to go on honeymoon to Australia as they have BIG, KILLER SPIDERS there. The cycle can start again when a spider goes within 20 feet of her child ‘be careful of the spider’!

Have you noticed that a phobia has different facets? In treating anyone for a phobia the therapist needs to break that facet down to what the real fear is and in the case of spiders it might be the long legs or the hairy body. 

The worst part of a phobia is the feeling of being ‘Out of Control’ even if you do not know what the ‘Control’ element is and the worst problem for someone with a phobia is they like to be in control and here they are in a spiral because of their ‘phobia’ they are out of ‘Control’ result vicious circle!

The upshot of a phobia is fear, which is according to the dictionary, an unpleasant emotion or thought that you have when you are frightened or worried by something dangerous, painful or bad that is happening or might happen. This is the case even when rationally you know that it will NOT happen.

You can ‘Fear the Worst’ to think something unpleasant might have happened, an  extreme example of this is when your daughter goes out for the night and she is expected home by 10pm and she just happens to be half an hour late and you go from thinking how late she is to imagining her lying in a hospital bed. When she does arrive home, safe and sound after a great night out she does not understand your feeling of fear and anxiety and why you are so angry with her for being a little late while you have been imaging life without her.

Your worry has been thinking about problems or unpleasant things that might happen in a way that makes you feel anxious. Not only has your mind been worried but your body has experienced a vast amount of stress which is caused by a great worry caused by a difficult situation, or something which causes this condition. 

People under stress may experience headaches, sweating, shaking, shivering, heart thumping, pain and sleeping difficulties or the situation may even lead to a full blown Panic attack which is a sudden period of severe anxiety in which your heart beats fast, you have trouble breathing and you feel as if something very bad is going to happen, you may even feel very frightened and anxious about a situation, and therefore unable to think clearly or act reasonably.

• Someone who is ‘phobic’ knows that their fear is irrational but still can't do anything about it.  
• The fear experienced by a ‘phobic’ and a ‘non-phobic’ is exactly the same when our well-being is threatened. 
• The only difference between appropriate fear and a phobia is what switches the fear response on. 
• In other words the "normal" fear is activated by something that is "not normal" so break that link and you've cured the phobia!

Fight or Flight? Someone undergoing major problems from their phobia or fear can be frozen not knowing what to do or how to react with the problem. Picture the little bunny crossing the road at night and then freezes with terror in your car headlights. Hopefully the bunny will then be more aware allowing instinct to take over and it hops away as quickly as its little bunny legs will allow, no road kill that night.

Everyone that comes to see me apart from the ones who want help in dealing with a specify Phobia, deny having any fears, I know because I ask ‘Do you have any fears or phobias?’ Every single person has had a fear or fears at some time and will do so in the future. Maybe with the exception of the Yogi master living high up in the mountain….hopefully not with a fear of heights,  BUT it is how we deal with the fear is the difference. 

Fear, I believe, can be a ‘good’ think provided the fear is not allowed to rule our life. It can be fear that gets us out of bed in the morning or makes sure we get the written report in or time or that we stay away from danger.

That feeling of adrenalin that can keep us going or keep us safe, imagine how else anyone who has experienced a traumatic event in their life cope. Firemen entering the World trade centre to help people I bet their first instinct may have been to run but no they went into the buildings to help save people. Or during the London bombings people helping more people despite the ‘fear’ of more bombs going off.

If you have a fear or a phobia that is affecting your life break it down to find out what is the worst part of the problem for you and if you are still unable to fix it yourself you have options and solutions.

Contact the National Phobics Society www.phobics-society.org.uk

Or

Call me 0800 731 8316 as I am willing to hold FREE ‘Fear Fixing’ clinics, and yes the call is FREE!

Or

If you have a fear of using the phone email me, gillian@thoughtfields.co.uk