The phobia-What is phobia called?

The phobia

What is phobia called?

Historically, the phobias belong to the group of the neuroses. With the Freudien direction, the term of neurosis indicates a disease of the personality in the beginning of which the prevalent comprehensible factors are psychological. Moreover, unlike the psychoses, in the neuroses, the subject did not lose the contact with reality and is aware to suffer from a psychological disorder but it does not manage to control its anguishes.

The phobias are crises of anguishes started by the presence of a specific object or a situation, which do not present objectively dangerous character.

To avoid the anguish, the subject will develop behaviors known as “contraphobic”:

> Avoidance of the object or the phobic situation.

> Attempt of reinsurance using “contraphobic” people or objects which make it possible in their presence to face the phobic situation without anguish (example: presence of a amieou of a small fetish object to be able to go to the cinema in the event of claustrophobia).

> Outlet conduit ahead, giving place to a confrontation deliberated on the dreaded danger, to an attitude of bravado, challenge. (example: jump in rubber band whereas the subject has a phobia of the vacuum).

Some examples of phobias

1 – Agoraphobia
It is the most current phobia. It is related to space: fear of big spaces and the public places.

It thus occurs in precise situations:

> Departure of the residence.

> In the street, the lieus high.

> In the shopping malls, public transport.

It is sometimes associated with the fear of closed spaces: claustrophobia (distresses with the cinema, with the theater: tendency to take the seat close to the exit).

Who is concerned?

It is especially the woman, initially entre16 and 35 years.

The supporting factors are:

> A dependant personality affectivement.

> Strong anguishes of separation during childhood.

> A sentimental rupture.

> A disease or the death of a close relation.

- > an accident.

> A medical, surgical affection.

In the absence of assumption of responsibility, these young women can be able from there more not to leave to it and to surconsommer of alcohol and anxiolytic for désangoisser.

2 – Social phobias
Fear of the situations where one is exposed with the special attention of others. For example, in public fear of:

> To speak or write,

> To answer questions,

> To pass from the examinations,

> To use public toilets,

> To eat,

> To perspire,

> To tremble, redden,

These situations generate at phobic social anguishes with feeling of guilt, of shame and inferiority

Who is concerned?

They are especially the men, single people, initially entre15 and 21 years.

Supporting factors: introverted personality.
Few found starting factors: progressive installation.

The risk is there too the fold on oneself and social insulation.

Moreover, the suicidal risk would be more frequent than in agoraphobia.

3 – Simple phobias
It is the fear isolated from only one situation or only one object. For example:

> Blood, care dental, certain medical acts,

> Animals: spiders, snakes, mouse…

> Heights = acrophobie.

> Voyages by plane, boat…

> Storm.

> Inanimate objects: knives, forks.

These phobias often begin between 8 and 11 years. They are often little invading and of stable evolution.

To note:
Certain simple phobias belong to the normal process of maturation of a child:

> Phobia of the black between 6 months and 2 years.

> Phobia of the large animals around 3 years.

- phobia of the small animals around 4 years

4 – Phobias of impulses
It is the fear of carrying out an act (or of pronouncing words) absurd, immoral, scatologic, or aggressive towards oneself or others.

Example: fear of saying coarse words during a mass, fear of insulting a colleague during a meeting, fear of killing his/her child.

In the phobia of impulse:

> The dreaded act is never made,

> Fear disappears in the absence of the object or from the phobic situation.

From or the phobias would come?

The psychoanalysis proposed in first an explanation in the beginning of these phobias. Schematically, certain unavowable impulses, like phantasms œdipiens, normally driven back in the unconscious one, would re-appear in the conscious one in a “disguised” form: phobias. These fears of objects and situations would be indeed psychiquement acceptable than our unconscious impulses.

Currently, the psychoanalytical theory of the neuroses is not used any more like single model of reference. There would be also biological predispositions to these phobias.

How to treat a phobia?

Cognitivo-Behavioral Therapies (TCC)

These therapies are currently proposed in first intention to treat not very severe phobias. They are short and the program is preestablished between the therapeutist cognitivo-behaviorist and the patient.

Initially, the patient and the therapeutist draw up a hierarchical display of the phobias (more serious at least serious).

Then, the subject imagines the situations distressing according to a preestablished progression and learns how at the same time to be released (desensitizing).

Then, the patient is confronted gradually with his fears in reality.

The place of the psychoanalysis
The psychoanalysis is a very good indication if the patient makes the request of it. It can be made after a TCC to include/understand why one became phobic. Indeed, the TCC regulate rather how to make it not to be phobic more.

In which cases to use drugs
> When the crises of anguishes are frequent and invalidating, one can prescribe the anxiolytiques ones. Sometimes the simple “contraphobic” presence of one of these drugs on oneself is enough to decrease the anguish of an agoraphobia sufferer in a public place.

> Certain types of antidepressants can be effective (social phobias)

To retain

The phobias result in crises of anguishes vis-a-vis objects or quite precise situations. When they are not very severe, the cognitivo-behavioral therapies can make it possible to treat them. The patient will be able, if it wishes it, to then try to better include/understand the origin of his anguishes through an analytical therapy.