Everyone in life has fears, it’s a natural way our brains process certain objects or situations that may be dangerous. Common fears may be heights or spiders; some would rationally go out of their way to avoid these, but this is quite different from having a phobia. A phobia is an irrational distress with a particular object or concept/idea. Although fears are well known now, they do not have to disrupt the lives of those who are living them. Throughout the essay there will be three different treatments with three different phobias in ways to cure a phobia; the first is a trauma-focused treatment approach for travel phobia, assessment and treatment for childhood phobias, and hypnosis in facilitating clinical treatment of injections.
Several people today suffer from travel phobia, yet there is little data regarding the phobia. The purpose of this study was to review the usefulness of a trauma-focused treatment approach for travel phobia from a cognitive behavioral therapy. Such technique used for the study was Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for a 184 person case from a rehabilitation provider. The reasoning for these particular tests was to enact a full body approach where as it tested all stimulated to the body instead of just one part. This was interesting because instead of focusing on the brain and how it functions, it focuses its method on full body awareness and really having the body get involved when consulting a phobia. A method that is somewhat controversial is using in vivo exposure; this refers to the direct confrontation with the stimulus of fear (object, activities, or situations). In vivo exposure is less strong as some might want to admit. This type of methods is only beneficial for certain pho...
... middle of paper ...
...perating hypnosis.
Reviewing three different methods of treatment of phobias there are several options to take into consideration from standard treatment such as in treatment study two or a more unusual treatment such as hypnosis.
Works Cited
de Jongh A, Holmshaw M, Carswell W, van Wijk A. Usefulness of a trauma-focused treatment approach for travel phobia. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy [serial online]. March 2011;18(2):124-137. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 12, 2013
King, N. J., Muris, P., & Ollendick, T. H. (2005). Childhood Fears and Phobias: Assessment and Treatment. Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 10(2), 50-56. doi:10.1111/j.1475-3588.2005.00118.x
Medd, D. Y. (2001). FEAR OF INJECTIONS: THE VALUE OF HYPNOSIS IN FACILITATING CLINICAL TREATMENT. Contemporary Hypnosis (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 18(2), 100
King, B., Nash, M., Spiegel, D., & Jobson, K. (2001). Hypnosis as an intervention in pain management. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 5(2), 97-101.
Just imagine for a moment that you have a cynophobia or the fear of dogs, would this be how you would feel. Driving down the road the oil light comes on. "I must stop the car to add more oil or I will damage the car engine. This looks like a good place to pull over. I'll just stop in front of this house. The oil is in the trunk, so I'll pop the top first, then get the oil out of the trunk. OK, I have the oil, but what if there is a dog at this house. Hurry, I have to hurry. A dog might come running out and bark at me any minute. Just get the oil in the engine. I can't my hands are shaking. Don't worry, there is no dog. Just get the oil in the engine. I don't care if I spill it, just get some in the engine. Take another look around, is there a dog anywhere. OK, the oils in, now hurry get back in the car. I can't breath. I'm safely back in the car, now just take a minute and breath. When will my hands stop shaking." This is how a person with a phobia of dogs might feel. There is no dog around anywhere in sight, but the thought of a dog running at them barking is enough to cause a panic attack. In "Exploring Psychology" David G. Myers defines phobia as "an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation" (432). This paper will explore the history, causes, effects, and treatment of Phobias.
A phobic disorder is marked by a persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that presents no realistic danger. Agoraphobia is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety occasioned by the prospect of having to enter certain outdoor locations or open spaces. For example, busy streets, busy stores, tunnels, bridges, public transportation and cars. Traditionally agoraphobia was solely classified as a phobic disorder. However, due to recent studies it is now also viewed as a panic disorder. Panic disorders are characterised by recurrent attacks of overwhelming anxiety that usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly (Weiten, 1998).
Fear is a potent emotional response developed by the intrinsic need to learn in order for one to better their means of self-preservation. Though often overlooked, fear is a mental construct which presents great importance in understanding an individual’s thoughts and mannerisms. Children can help scientists to better recognize how these fears emerge. The early years of life can be considered the most daunting; everything in the environment surrounding a child is fairly new, strange, and unfamiliar. In the psychological community, it is widely accepted that fears are determined from two main constituents: biological and environmental factors. Both factors play an essential role in defining fear as well as the determination of what a child may
“Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically exposure therapy, has garnered a great deal of empirical support in the literature for the treatment of anxiety disorders” (Gerardi et al., 2010). Exposure therapy is an established PTSD treatment (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001) and so is a benchmark for comparing other therapies (Taylor et al, 2003). “Exposure therapy typically involves the patient repeatedly confronting the feared stimulus in a graded manner, either in imagination or in vivo. Emotional processing is an essential component of exposure therapy” (Gerardi et al., 2010). “Exposure therapy in the virtual environment allows the participant to experience a sense of presence in an immersive, computer-generated, three-dimensional, interactive environment that minimizes avoidance behavior and facilitates emotional involvement” (Gerardi et al., 2010). This therapy has been thought to be more effective because it better accesses people’s emotions to their traumatic event. EMDR is where the participant was asked to recall the memory and its associated and then lateral sets of eye movements were induced by the therapist moving her finger across the participant's field of vision (Taylor et al., 2003).
Characteristics of agoraphobia are a marked fear or anxiety about two or more of the following: "using public transportation" like cars, planes, trains, and buses; "being in open spaces" like a market, a parking lot, a bridge, or ship; "being in enclosed places" like a store, a theater, or an elevator; "standing in line or being in a crowd"; or "being outside of the home alone." (APA, 2013, pg 217) This fear differs from other phobias in that the fear is not the specific place or thing, but the person is afraid that they might not be able to leave or get help if they panic or are incapacitated or have embarrassing symptoms or situations. This might be because of other medical conditions such as vomiting or inflammatory bowel symptoms. Older adults might fear falling. Children might fe...
McCullough, L. Treating Affect Phobia: A Manual for Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford, 2003. Print.
Conquering phobias is a specialty of hypnotherapists. A phobia is a compulsive fear of a specified situation or object (Knight 2). A few types of phobias are fear of open spaces, fear of snow, fear of the cold, fear of marriage, fear of insanity, fear of being alone, fear of darkness, fear of disease, fear of beards, fear of birds, fear of being stared at, fear of bein...
...6. Generalization from the original phobic stimulus to stimuli of a similar nature will occur; 7. Noxious experiences which occur under conditions of excessive confinement are more likely to produce phobic reactions; 8. Neutral stimuli which are associated with a noxious experience, may develop motivating properties. This acquired drive is termed the fear drive; 9. Responses (such as avoidance) which reduce the fear drive are reinforced; 10. Phobic reactions can be acquired vicariously (Rachman 31). These theories are used to identify how people obtain phobias and other situations that may occur with phobias.
In this treatment, “clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviors, but they are told to resist performing the behaviors they feel so bound to preform” (Comer, 2015). Individuals going through this treatment will often find it extremely difficult to resist the urge to preform these compulsions, or behaviors, therefor the therapist will often be the first to set this example. This treatment can be conducted in an individual, or group
Hypnosis has been used for a wide range of problems from, opting to remove some symptoms of certain mental diseases, reducing stress and psychological traumas, and treating phobias, to aiming to cause weight loss and cure one from illness and diseases (Keller, 2008). Although hypnosis in general, is considered to be safe and totally harmless when controlled by a physician, the present era has attached danger to it, in that it creates delusions through other people’s lives. According to MacKenzie (2011), “Hypnosis has been perceived as clouding people’s imaginations while they undergo relaxation, both internally and externally. While under hypnosis we experience a heightened sense of imagination and are open to suggestions and changes.” Coker (2010) found Pseudoscience to encourage people to believe anything they want. “It supplies specious "arguments" for fooling yourself into thinking that any and all beliefs are equally valid...
One of the characteristics of a phobia is a feeling that is greater than the fear of a situation or object with an exaggeration of the danger associated with the said situation or even object. This persistent fear often leads to an anxiety disorder that leads an individual to develop mechanisms that ensure one avoids the object or situation that triggers the occurrence of the phobia. Phobias can have highly debilitating effects on an individual including the development of depression, isolation, substance abuse, and even suicide. Many people take phobia for granted however, it is clear that it has the potential to impair the quality of life for both the affected and the people around them. The fact that many of the phobias are manageable using
For example, during relaxation training, the client could be instructed to practice relaxing all the body parts she has learned so far once a day. The client could also be assigned to use progressive relaxation while feeling anxious at least once before the next session. This continued practice would help reinforce the client’s ability to replace anxiety with relaxation. Overall, the primary focus, or essential component, of systematic desensitization is having the client experience repeated, safe exposure to anxiety-evoking situations that does not result in any negative consequences. However, the facilitative components, gradual exposure and competing response, are beneficial due to the severity of the client’s phobia (O'Donohue & Fisher, 2009; Spiegler,
Introduce Topic: A phobia as defined by medicalnewstoday.com, “is an irrational fear, a kind of anxiety disorder in which the sufferer has a relentless dread of a situation, living creature, place or thing.”
... is fundamentally a whole; however, many of us have lost touch with significant elements of our selves. Through listening to the information of our dreams and active imagination, we can contact and reintegrate our different parts. The goal of life is individuation, the idea of coming to know, giving expression to, and reconciling the diverse elements of the psyche.