Phobias

Phobias are amongst the most common mental health disorders. It is a type of anxiety disorder in which you experience intense and irrational fear of places, objects or situations. You may understand there is no real danger, but you feel powerless to rein in their terror. When these fears start impacting your day to day functioning, they need treatment.

What are the Common Symptoms?

Regardless of the type of phobia, the symptoms are usually similar to a panic attack. 

  • Nausea
  • Sweating
  • Palpitations 
  • Shortness of breath
  • Trembling
  • Numbness of the hands and feet
  • Cold sweat 
  • Dizziness
  • In children, symptoms include crying, being clingy, or even a temper tantrum.

Types of phobia : 

Social Phobia – 

Also commonly called Social Anxiety Disorder are the most common types of phobias. Commonly affects children of school going age. They may subside on their own with age or go on to continue in adulthood. They are worried about people watching them and judging them. This can make it hard to engage in everyday activities and to make friends and maintain relationships. 

Agoraphobia- 

Is characterised by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. These situations can include public transit, shopping centres, crowds and queues, or simply being outside their home on their own. For some people with agoraphobia, they end up refusing to leave home due to their fears.

Specific phobia :
An intense, irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger.

These can include:

  • Animal type – Fear of spiders (arachnophobia), Insects (entomophobia), Dogs (cynophobia), or Snakes (ophidiophobia).
  • Natural environment type – Fear of water (aquaphobia), Heights (acrophobia), Lightning and thunderstorms (astraphobia), or Ageing (gerascophobia).
  • Situational type – Fear of small confined spaces (claustrophobia), or Dark (nyctophobia).

Blood/injection/injury type – Including fear of medical procedures, including needles and injections (trypanophobia), fear of blood (hemophobia), fear of getting injured (traumatophobia), fear of getting illness (hypochondriasis)