I'm scared to death of flying, and I never do it anymore. I used to start dreading a plane trip a month before I was due to leave. It was an awful feeling when that airplane door closed and I felt trapped. My heart would pound, and I would sweat bullets. When the airplane would start to ascend, it just reinforced the feeling that I couldn't get out. When I think about flying, I picture myself losing control, freaking out, and climbing the walls, but of course I never did that. I'm not afraid of crashing or hitting turbulence. It's just that feeling of being trapped.

A specific phobia is an intense, unrealistic, and persistent fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. Some of the more common specific phobias are centered around five areas:

* Animals, such as dogs, snakes, rats, and spiders

* Natural environments, such as heights, water, storms, and the dark

* Situations, such as speaking, flying, dentists, and closed-in spaces

* Blood-Injection-Injury, such as shots, medical procedures, and injury

* Other phobias, such as clowns, illness, and dying

Such phobias aren't just extreme fear; they are irrational fear of a particular thing. You may be able to ski the world's tallest mountains with ease but be unable to go above the 5th floor of an office building.

While adults with phobias realize that these fears are irrational, they often find that facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared object or situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety. In the face of the feared object, people may experience panic and fear, a rapid heartbeat , shortness of breath, trembling, and a strong desire to get away

Specific phobias affect an estimated 19.2 million adult Americans and are twice as common in women as men.  They usually appear in childhood or adolescence and tend to persist into adulthood. The causes of specific phobias are not well understood, but there is some evidence that the tendency to develop them may run in families.

If the feared situation or feared object is easy to avoid, people with specific phobias may not seek help; but if avoidance interferes with their careers or their personal lives, it can become disabling and treatment is usually pursued.

Some of the most common phobias include the following:

* Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders

* Ophidiophobia: Fear of snakes

* Acrophobia:  Fear of heights

* Amathophobia:  Fear of dust

* Cynophobia: Fear of dogs

* Astraphobia:  Fear of lightning

* Trypanophobia: Fear of injections

* Aviophobia / Pteromerhanophobia:  Fear of flying

* Mysophobia: Fear of germs or dirt

* Claustrophobia:  Fear of confined spaces

* Triskaidekaphobia:  Fear of all things associated with the number 13

Specific phobias respond very well to carefully targeted cognitive-behavioral therapy, specifically using desensitization and exposure interventions.

In this form of treatment, you are exposed to the object or situation you fear in a safe and controlled way.  This procedure is called graded exposure because it involves gradual encounters with the fear-producing object.  You are first exposed to it in your imagination, then through images, and then  in reality.

By repeatedly exposing yourself to the feared object or situation, you learn how to change your thinking and calm your body in the face of the stressor.  You'll gain control over your phobia as you become sensitized and no longer react with high anxiety. 

The longer you are exposed to the stimuli and learn how to confront your fear-evoking cognitions, the more you feel an increasing sense of control over your phobia. This sense of control over the situation and yourself is the most important benefit of exposure therapy. As you become desensitized to your fear, you no longer react with uncontrollable panic when confronted by it.

At Florida Anxiety Clinic, we also use Participant Modeling, which refers to how your therapist will model for you how to interact with the object of fear before encouraging you to do the same.  Whatever you go through, your therapist will also experience! 

Phobias can often be treated in as little as two to four sessions, but oftentimes these sessions are longer than the traditional 50-minutes; they might last for up to 4 hours.

<top of page>

Source: NIMH (edited version); DSM-IV