10 Most Common Phobias

Anxiety is the most important sign of Phobia

For the people who suffer from a phobia, the question alone can cause an instant rise in anxiety. A phobia can be literally defined as an intense fear of some thing, some place or some situation. Often thought of as an irrational fear, the anxiety surrounding the feared situations is nothing less than real for those who are suffering the anxiety.

Signs and Symptoms of a Phobia

When a person who suffers from a phobia is placed in the situation they fear most, the first response is anxiety and lots of anxiety. Along with anxiety, the person can experience, dizziness, loss of the ability to breathe, upset stomach or vomiting, and an intense fear of immediate death. Each of these symptoms is very closely related to the anxiety felt in the situation.

The longer a period of time the person is held in the feared situation, the worse the symptoms related to the anxiety may become. This is the most common health problem associated with phobias. The anxiety levels may rise to uncontrollable levels and what started as an anxiety filled fear, can lead to heart attack or even death.

Types of Phobia

There are three defined subsets of phobias. These include social phobias, agoraphobia and specific phobias. Social phobias cause immense anxiety in social situations, agoraphobia is the fear of trapped in a place or a situation that the person will not be able to get out of and specific phobias entail any situation that causes an immense level of anxiety.

Treatment of Phobia

When a person feels such a high level of anxiety in any situation, the first line of treatment is often the relief of that anxiety. The anxiety levels, once under control, will take away the physical effects of the phobia and the person will then be able to concentrate on psychotherapy to remove the fear.

Hypnosis is a relatively new and homeopathic treatment for phobia. As with other forms of treatment, the beginning stages of hypnotherapy for phobias will deal with the anxiety and getting that reaction under control before handling the cause of the anxiety.

Phobias may seem like irrational, anxiety causing fears. But for the person who suffers from the phobia, these very real feelings of anxiety can hamper social life and cause physical harm if left untreated. The body reactions to the phobic cause by raising the anxiety levels beyond normal limits and thus the body must be placed on red alert in order to deal with the impending sense of doom.

If left untreated or not treated on time, phobia in its various forms and the resultant anxiety, fear and panic attacks may lead to gravest of situations and in some cases even death.

Read on:

The history of treatments for anxiety and for phobias.

The new methods and new treatments for anxiety.