Phobias

=**Phobia**= =**By Roman**=

The word Phobia comes from the Greek word φόβος, //Phóbos//, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear". A phobia is a mental disorder which is basicly a string and irational fear of a situation or a thing. Signs and symptoms are very simular to the ones of a normal fear, but in many cases uccur much stronger. Such as:
 * racing heartbeat
 * headache
 * goosebumps
 * sweating
 * dry mouth
 * sick feeling in the stomach

How phobias develop is difficult to find out. There are some major theories to that but non of them is right or wrong in all cases. Sometimes a phobia can be triggered by a traumatic event. For example people who got stung by a bee when they were a child may develop Apiphobia (fear of bees). Some phobias also seem to be genetic since they seem to run in the family.

Generally phobias are classified in three groups:


 * Social Phobia
 * Agoraphobia
 * Specific Phobias

__Social Phobia:__ Social Phobias normaly appear in a persons childhood. Phobias can be a problem when ocouring in this early stage of devolopment, because the harm the build of peorsonal and social skills. Social Phobias can come and go in persons life depending on the situations. These people often try to ovoid social events like goin to the movie theater or a concert. They are also more likely to get in panic before job interviews or other stressing social situations.

__Agoraphobia:__ This is probably the most serious phobia. The victim experiences fear and panic attacks in situations where it feels that it can't control the situation or it can't get out of it imediatly. Symptoms these people experience are the general phobia simptoms listed above and sometimes even trouble breathing, a sens of losing control, or chest pain that can be so bad the victim thinks it is having a hearth attack. This might occur in public places, public transportation, big guildings, small rooms, or just unknown and unconftortable situations. Over time people with Agrophobia avoid places where there panic attacks occur. In most cases this gets worse over time, so that some victims won't leave there house anymore. Sometimes it helps if they have a "safe" person with them, suchas a good friend, wife a parent or so on. But that doesn't always work. The exact causes are are unknow and there is no way to prevent agrophobia but there are ways that offer help.

__Specific Phobias:__ A Even though there is no exact explanation where they come from, specific Phobias are when a victim experiences a panis attack when ecxposed to a specific objek, thing or situation, such as hights, tight spaces, snakes, spiders, clowns. This type of a Phobia is the most common one, it is also the easiest to treat and in most cases doesn't affect a victims life to much since they are often easy to avoid.

__Phobia Treatment:__ Phobias are generaly easy to treat. A combination of medication and conitive behavior therapy helps very good to get phobias under control or even get over them. Some commonly used therapies are:


 * __Densitation:__ The victim gets it contact with its fear very slowly so it can get used to it and doesn't think about it as something bad. For example if the patient experiences fear of Frogs it might get to see a pictur of one first, then a video, then a real one and finally may even be able to touch one without geting a panic attack.
 * __Flooding:__ The victim gets immediatly in contact with it's fear. If it has fear of snakes it will get to be in the same room to see that there is no reason to fear it.

No matter what type of phobias a person has some universal lifestyle changes most always help to weaken the phobia such as:
 * eliminating use of caffeine
 * cutting down on alcohol
 * eating a good diet
 * getting plenty of exercise
 * reducing stress

__Sources:__
 * 1) Perspectives On Diseases & Disorders phobias ISBN-13: 978-0-7377-4027-1
 * 2) http://www.helpguide.org/mental/phobia_symptoms_types_treatment.htm
 * 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobia
 * 4) http://phobialist.com/