Agoraphobia And Social Phobias

As stated earlier, a phobia is an intense fear of an object or an event that can cause little to no actual harm to someone. An estimated 18 percent of the U.S. adult population suffers from a type of phobia, whether is be specific, social, or agoraphobia. No one knows how these phobias develop in someone, but there are ways to treat them if they do occur. To treat specific phobia, people can ask their physicians for medication to help them cope with the fear such as Xanax and Valium. However, if the phobia causes significant problems in which the person cannot do daily tasks, they will need professional help. To treat social phobia, patients can go through cognitive-behavior therapy and medications. Medications do not really help with getting rid of the phobia but suppress it. If one wants to actually overcome their fear, cognitive-behavior therapy works better. Agoraphobia is the same, as cognitive-behavior therapy helps out with the person’s fear of spaces.

In the paragraph above, it gives a statistic that says,“... Phobias are common in the general population; approximately one person in ten suffers from mild phobias, and severe, disabling phobias are found in one person out in five hundred people”. Salem D.S. (2016) It was mentioned that people can have phobias but be too nervous or ashamed to seek treatment. Out of these people, not to mention it is an estimated 7 billion people in the world, imagine how many would be too afraid to openly deal with their phobia. This is why we need to better understand what phobias are and be able to have multiple and functional treatment methods. Another statistic this time mentioned in the introduction was that in America alone, 18 percent of the people residing in the nation. The top ten phobias experienced by Americans are listed