Phobias

Phobias

Fear is a normal and an important human reaction to something dangerous, it keeps one out of danger, because fear is disliked and one tries ones best to avoid the object or situation of fear. It causes physical changes known as fight-or-flight reaction, which causes blood pressure to increase and the heart rate to speed up to pump blood to the large muscles used to run away, to balance this the human body has sweat glands which produce perspiration to cool the body.

Usually young people experience more fear than adults do (Metcalf).

When one has a fear of something, one normally does not spend much time thinking about it, and it only affects one when one is forced to confront it.

Just about everyone is afraid of something, but about 18% (Metcalf) of all Americans are tormented by irrational fears that interfere with their daily lives. These irrational fears are called phobia, and there is a fine line between phobia and fear. Doctors consider phobia a type of anxiety disorders, since anxiety refers to a feeling of nervousness, worry or stress about something that is happening in the future. Thereby anxiety disorders are estimated to affect 13 in 100 children and adolescents ages 9 to 17, about half of whom also experience a second mental or behavioral aliment, such as social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression (Metcalf). A phobia is the fear of a fear itself, which means that one worries about something that could happen. One spends a lot of time thinking about the fear and tries hard to avoid it, and usually when thinking of the phobic situation people are literally thinking thoughts, that scare them, usually they’re not consciously aware of the scary thoughts, they’re just aware of the feelings t...

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...stead of going to therapy some people decide to take medications. Several drugs are used to treat specific phobias by controlling symptoms and helping prevent panic attacks, such as anti-anxiety drugs, and blood pressure medication, which are called “beta blockers” and normally used for social phobia. Drugs reduce overstimulation, thereby controlling the physical symptoms of anxiety. Thereby the patient has to be aware of the fact that drugs treat the symptoms of phobia, but do not remove the causes, and the phobia itself.

The costs caused by phobias are high. Anxiety disorders, including phobia, cost America more than $42 billion a year, from which 2% are pharmaceutical costs, 31% are the total direct psychiatric treatment costs, 10% are the total workplace costs, 3% are mortality costs, and 54% are direct non-psychiatric medical treatment costs (Metcalf).