Phobias
We have all heard of this term, but what exactly is a phobia?
In my earlier posts I wrote about fear, panic attack & anxiety. I am sure this has helped all of us to see how closely related they all are. Well, phobia is also part of this family.
Phobia is really an irrational fear.
This means, if we closely analyse this fear, we will find it to be absolutely irrational.
Let's list down some common phobias that we may have or are aware of: fear of closed spaces, fear of open spaces, fear of heights, fear of riding in an elevator, fear of flying on an air plane, fear of the dark, fear of corpses, fear of ghosts, fear of certain types of houses (haunted houses), fear of blood, fear of injections, fear of spiders, fear of cockroaches, fear of swimming towards the deeper end of a pool, fear of knives, fear of ..... and the list can keep going on.
As we kept reading this list, I am sure that at some of the fears we could not help but laugh, at some others we may have smiled, but at certain fears we may have fully acknowledged it as a serious fear.
This may have made you want to challenge me on it by saying "but wait a minute Maya, are you saying that I should not be afraid of ......? You must be joking!"
Well, my reply to that would be "No, I am certainly not joking here. It is indeed an irrational fear that you are experiencing to ...., but, your mind has simply accepted it as a rational fear."
I understand that this can be very difficult to accept. However, if we will closely observe how people behave toward a situation that we strongly fear - we will find that they will vary considerably in their response to it. Some will have a stronger fear just like us to the situation, while others will have milder or no fear at all. Shouldn't this at least then give us some clue to the fact that our fear to this situation may be far too irrational?
So from where did these irrational fears enter us?
Did our parents pass them to us through our genes or did our experiences and influencers bring them upon us?
Well, research shows that both nature and nurture are the reasons for our phobias with the latter being the greater influence. This means, that we may have inherited them but the greater chances are that we have been encouraged to fear them.
Phobias can seriously impair our lives. However, the good news is that these phobias can easily be treated through what we call exposure therapy. This is done by gradually confronting one's fears in a relatively controlled setting.
If we have a friend who is not afraid of what we are so strongly afraid of - we can also ask them to help us to gradually come out of this fear. As they try to help us through much patience and encouragement, we also need to learn to build our trust in them about what they are saying about this fear and then start gradually believing it as true.
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