“We need to seek better treatments, conduct more information as to the causes of various phobias, and need to understand he or she, and why they have these phobias, and gain a better understanding of the phobia itself.”



Phobias



Phobias are one of the most common mental disorders in the untied states. Over 10% of all people in the United States have some sort of phobia. No matter if it’s Social phobia, fear of open spaces, or specific phobias such as spiders, snakes, or shots, they are all Phobias and people need to over come these.

Some may not be as serious as some. The minor phobias may have symptoms such as:

*Shortness of breath, accelerated heart rate, chest pain or discomfort, sweating, feeling of choking, and many more. These are the most common symptoms. The more severe symptoms may be:

Anxiety, hyperventilating, and panicking when a person faces their phobia.

If people have any of these symptoms, they must seek help and learn to overcome this phobia. A minor phobia may only take a few weeks of therapy to overcome while a severe phobia can take years. It all depends on the phobia, the person, and what the cause of the phobia is. Everyone needs to understand why the phobia is occurring, when it started, and what caused it. People need to gain a better understanding of the person with this mental disorder as well, so they may try to relate to them and help them over come this phobia.


There are many programs out there that help assist patients through the recovery process, and provide support. They also help them manage and decrease their symptoms. Some of the well-known programs are:

The anxiety and phobia center- *Phobia workshop- this helps patients relate to others, and gain a better understanding of why they have this phobia, and meet with social workers and therapists. They are able to learn to over come their fears and share progress with each other while supporting others. This is one of the best programs, and is a lot like other treatments and programs.

Another problem that occurs mostly in severe phobias are panic attacks. Panic attacks may come out of the blue without any warning what so ever. It may be a one-time thing but most people experience it more than once. They are often triggered by a certain situation such as riding an airplane or crossing a bridge. Usually the situation that causes this is one when a person feels endangered and unable to escape.

Here is a Story about Amy. When she was about 3 years old, she developed a phobia towards characters such as chucke at chucke cheese, snoopy, Mickey, mouse, ect. Whenever she saw a character at a mall, park, zoo, or anywhere, her heart started beating hard, her whole body began to shake, and her legs became stiff. She would try to find any way possible to avoid going near the character, but she had nowhere to go. At first Amy would stop, stare, start crying and try to run the opposite way. After that the worst of it came. Amy would begin to have a panic attack. She couldn’t breathe, she was hyperventilating, shaking, and had to be rushed away to calm down and breathe into a paper bag.

This lasted until Amy was fourth grade. Nobody knows the cause of it, but even in fifth grade she still felt uncomfortable around characters, however Amy didn’t have panic attacks. Even today she still does not like characters, but over the years Amy has learned to accept the fact that she won’t be able to live if she never faces her fear or phobia. All because of this phobia, Amy was never able to go to Disney land or Disney world. She also couldn’t go to certain amusement parks or fun events. This phobia was taking over Amy’s life, and her family’s as well. Amy knew she had to overcome it. That’s exactly what she did. Amy never went to therapy, or had any kind of treatment but she did overcome it on her own. To Amy, characters are like getting shots. You don’t mind them, but you don’t like them either.


If People have phobias, we need to seek treatment for them immediately or the phobia will just become more and more severe. Its best to not make he or she overcome it on there own because when they do, its usually because it became to severe to handle and it also takes a lot longer to overcome.

If anyone knows somebody with a phobia, don’t just sit there and watch. Help them. Talk to them, understand them, the phobia, and the cause of it and help seek treatment for he or she. We need to help encourage everyone with phobias before it gets to severe, and before it affects other. Lets try to make it so that ways only 5% of people in the U.S have phobias instead of 10%. The only way this can happen is if we “seek better treatments, conduct more information as to the causes of various phobias, and understand he or she, and why they have these phobias, and gain a better understanding of the phobia itself.”