|
Facts About Phobias (cont)
Most of the phobias people develop have a basis for creating some level of fear, says Cary Savage, Ph.D., an assistant professor and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Group in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Enclosed spaces could lead to suffocation, for instance, and people could fall from high places. Phobias develop when people's fear responses become exaggerated. What's unclear in children of parents with specific phobias, says Savage, is how much of their response is biological, and how much comes from early learning. They may physically inherit the tendency for hyper-responsiveness or they may learn it behaviorally. "It's really hard to tease apart," he says. Therapists break phobias into three general categories:
Specific Phobias The Surgeon General's report says about 8 percent of adults suffer from one or more specific phobias, the most common being animals, insects, heights, elevators, flying, automobile driving, water, storms and blood or injections. People with specific phobias usually recognize that their intense fear of certain objects or situations is irrational. They generally "treat" their phobia by avoiding their trigger, and seek professional help only if the phobia begins to impair their life. Maybe they're up for a job promotion that would require air travel. Or maybe they have scheduled surgery that requires lots of advance blood work.
Social Phobias |
