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Specific Phobia
A specific phobia is an intense fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. Some of the more common specific phobias are centered around closed-in places, heights, escalators, tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, dogs, and injuries involving blood. Such phobias aren't just extreme fear; they are irrational fear of a particular thing. You may be able to ski the world's tallest mountains with ease but be unable to go above the 5th floor of an office building. While adults with phobias realize that these fears are irrational, they often find that facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared object or situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety.
Specific phobias affect an estimated 6.3 million adult Americans1 and are twice as common in women as in men.10 The causes of specific phobias are not well understood, though there is some evidence that these phobias may run in families.11 Specific phobias usually first appear during childhood or adolescence and tend to persist into adulthood.12
If the object of the fear is easy to avoid, people with specific phobias may not feel the need to seek treatment. Sometimes, though, they may make important career or personal decisions to avoid a phobic situation, and if this avoidance is carried to extreme lengths, it can be disabling. Specific phobias are highly treatable with carefully targeted psychotherapy.
Phobias aren't just extreme fears; they are irrational fears. You may be able to ski the world's tallest mountains with ease but feel panic going above the 5th floor of an office building.
Specific Phobia Symptoms
These common conditions are characterized by marked fear of specific objects or situations . Exposure to the object of the phobia, either in real life or via imagination or video, invariably elicits intense anxiety, which may include a (situationally bound) panic attack. Adults generally recognize that this intense fear is irrational. Nevertheless, they typically avoid the phobic stimulus or endure exposure with great difficulty. The most common specific phobias include the following feared stimuli or situations: animals (especially snakes, rodents, birds, and dogs); insects (especially spiders and bees or hornets); heights; elevators; flying; automobile driving; water; storms; and blood or injections.
Approximately 8 percent of the adult population suffers from one or more specific phobias in 1 year (Table 4-1). Much higher rates would be recorded if less rigorous diagnostic requirements for avoidance or functional impairment were employed. Typically, the specific phobias begin in childhood, although there is a second "peak" of onset in the middle 20s of adulthood . Most phobias persist for years or even decades, and relatively few remit spontaneously or without treatment.
The specific phobias generally do not result from exposure to a single traumatic event (i.e., being bitten by a dog or nearly drowning) (Marks, 1969). Rather, there is evidence of phobia in other family members and social or vicarious learning of phobias (Cook & Mineka, 1989). Spontaneous, unexpected panic attacks also appear to play a role in the development of specific phobia, although the particular pattern of avoidance is much more focal and circumscribed.
Source: National Institute of Mental Health
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