Phobias, you said phobias: Understand and Act

Phobias, what are they?

Twenty percent of the population suffers from a phobia. However, people suffering from phobias can overcome them completely. We can unintentionally help create our phobias. Avoidance is a major factor that contributes to maintaining our most common fears. Phobias can be a persistent, intense fear of certain objects or situations, people or places. Specific phobias are linked to certain objects and situations. The human imagination is so creative that it can create fear of anything, dogs, cats, flying, wind, clouds, blushing, relationships, etc.

Phobias are usually very unpleasant, but effective therapy can help you overcome them. According to the World Health Organization, fear and phobia affect more than 20% of the population, making it one of the most common psychological difficulties.

Fear basically runs along a spectrum, from pure fear, which is a phobia or phobic reaction, to fear with some form of control, also known as obsessive-compulsive disorder, to until we finally have outright control over obsession and obsession.

Fear of our solutions

There are many possible triggers for fear, some found inside the person and others outside, giving rise to different types of phobias. Some phobias are created in the mind, such as the fear of blushing, and others are created by reality, such as the fear of snakes or tigers which actually have the capacity to hurt us or put us in danger.

However, once created, a phobia can begin to handicap people in their lives and block them from work and personal or intimate relationships. However, as I mentioned in my book The 12 Most Common Mental Traps (Gibson, 2021), psychological problems tend to occur in a predictive and redundant manner, often following the same pattern, as in the case of attacks panic and agoraphobia .

For these two phobic reactions in particular, we commonly observe the use of three attempts at dysfunctional solutions by patients: 1) avoidance of any situation likely to trigger their fear, 2) seeking help and comfort from others. other people, who only question their own resources, and 3) the attempted forced control of their biological response, which only triggers the very reaction they are trying to stifle.

These unsuccessful attempts to control the situation lead to an increasing loss of control over fears. In terms of time, it only takes a few months. These attempted solutions combined create a rigid psychological problem and potentially diagnosable disorder.

This phobic response and the way it is created by failed attempts to resolve the problem fuels the problem and the person remains imprisoned.