Deal with your phobias

According to WHO, half of the adult population of the Earth suffers from fears that interfere with a normal life. So, 40% feel stress during each air flight, 22% during treatment at the dentist, and 12% have phobias – sudden and paralyzing fears: for example, a person simply cannot get on a plane or go to a doctor’s office.

Nervous trembling, a feeling of complete insecurity, horror seizes some of us in front of an airplane gangway, in front of an enclosed (or open) space, alone or in need of public speaking … These emotions – uncontrollable at first glance – poison everyday life. But they are not fatal – a phobia cannot be controlled, but you can get rid of it or significantly weaken its influence.

Failure of signaling in the body

Imagine a situation in which a car alarm is triggered. Someone opens the car and there is a sound, loud enough to be heard, but still not deafening to the human ear. The alarm works as long as it takes to be noticed, but the owner can turn it off. A faulty alarm will become inconvenient and useless – it will work too often, sound too loud and for a long time …

Fear works in a similar way. It also signals: something is going wrong. Natural fear draws our attention to danger. Painful fear, like a broken alarm, is excessive, unjustified and meaningless.

“Often it manifests itself as“ strange ”behavior at the most unexpected moment,” explains cognitive psychologist Alexei Lunkov. – A person can “numb” during a harmless conversation or run out of the room, noticing a spider on the wallpaper … “

“We can neither explain the strength of this fear, nor suppress the fear in ourselves,” says psychotherapist Margarita Zhamkochyan. “And ambiguity always increases panic.” A person is driven by an irresistible irrational desire to get away from a frightening situation or object and even talking about it. This panic, unrelenting fear, leading to irrational behavior, is a phobia (from the Greek “phobos” – horror).

How do we react: passively or actively?

Fear is the body’s natural response to danger, real or imagined. By itself, it does not create a serious difficulty for us, on the contrary, it allows us to react intelligently to a dangerous situation. So, a professional climber behaves cautiously at high altitude, but his fears do not prevent him from moving towards the goal.

All natural fears make us act actively, while phobias are passive: a person does not look for ways to get rid of his fear, he is simply afraid.

“At this moment, rational fear gets out of control, feelings and emotions are no longer controlled by consciousness,” adds Alexey Lunkov. – A phobia is an obsessive painful condition not associated with real danger, but arising whenever a person is faced with a frightening situation. At the same time, his whole life is subordinated to one thing: “If only I don’t run into this.”

Most often, phobias are associated with animals, natural elements and phenomena (depth, height, darkness, thunderstorms …), transport, blood and wounds, social situations (views, judgments …) and being in public places. There are many phobias associated with the body: fear of suffocation, falling, fear of nausea …

Phobias and gender

There are twice as many women with phobias as men. Researchers studying human psychology at different stages of evolution believe that this state of affairs has developed largely due to the traditional distribution of responsibilities.

American sociologists Tacott Parsons and Robert Bales put forward a hypothesis according to which many gender differences are explained by the “instrumentality” of male behavior and the “expressiveness” of female behavior.

Hunting, cattle breeding, fishing – once the main activities of men were associated with risk and danger, but irrational fear would make them simply impossible. A woman, the keeper of the hearth and the educator of children, on the contrary, had to be very careful, pay attention to the dangers that threatened the death of children and the family.

This distribution of gender characteristics, as well as the characteristics of the upbringing of boys and girls, persisted in most societies.

“As a result, modern girls are very susceptible to the fears of their parents and loved ones, they are more subtle in recognizing the emotions of others, they are more easily infected with fear,” says Margarita Zhamkochyan. “In addition, modern parents are tolerant of the fears of their daughters and encourage the desire of their sons not to be afraid of danger.”

On the other hand, the male desire to cope with difficulties on their own affects the statistics: women suffering from phobias are more likely to seek help, and many men prefer to endure and do not fall into the field of view of specialists.

Three sources of phobias

How does a person acquire a phobia? “The basis of this experience is primarily biological,” says Alexei Lunkov, “since some people are genetically predisposed to panic fears. As a rule, they are oversensitive and overemotional. From the point of view of psychology, this innate feature can be enhanced or, conversely, extinguished by upbringing and life events.

The development of a phobia is also influenced by the social factor: new realities of life, certain social situations also increase (or weaken) our susceptibility to exaggerated fears. So, today there are much more phobias associated with land or air transport, but we also drive and fly much more often than 20-30 years ago.

“Sometimes phobias arise as a result of a strong fright, often experienced in childhood,” says Margarita Zhamkochyan. “Suddenness, for example, the barking of a dog, an instant reciprocal fear … and a harmless animal is already perceived as a threatening monster.”

Healing by provocation

Our fears are treatable, sometimes surprisingly quickly. What about phobias? This uncontrollable emotional overreaction occurs only in certain situations, just as an allergy becomes an immune overreactivity in response to exposure to a particular allergen.

To get rid of such dependence, it is necessary to artificially evoke a reflex of sudden fear: consciously put yourself in frightening situations, getting used to them and gradually increasing the impact of provoking factors.

This technique is similar to the treatment of allergies: there is a gradual addiction to the allergen and at the same time a decrease in sensitivity to it. For example, in order to stop being afraid of pigeons, you first need to get used to the image of these birds in the photo, then accustom yourself to look at the pigeon in the cage, and then go to the flock of pigeons in the park …

The goal of psychotherapy is not a release from a phobia, but the introduction of fear into a natural framework: it must become adequate and controllable. Often those who suffer from some kind of phobia begin to “be afraid of the fear itself.” And the “fear habituation” exercises, combined with relaxation techniques, help you learn to accept it as an inevitability. Having ceased to be afraid of your fear, you can begin to treat it more calmly – to understand, respond, overcome.

4 steps to stop your phobia

1. Don’t give in to your fears. Excessive fears limit our freedom and can enslave us: “Don’t go outside, don’t get close, don’t talk about…” The more you obey them, the stronger they will become. Treat intense fear as an intruder, and learn to understand what you want (to be free) and what the phobia wants (to enslave you).

2. Think about the reason for your fear and move on to action. It’s always good to know where fears come from. But devoting all your time and energy to finding causes is not worth it. Find the strength to face the object of your fear directly.

3. Learn to relax and meditate. Do exercises regularly, during which you will train to accept your fear. Project, for example, a frightening situation onto an imaginary movie screen – zoom in and out of the “image”. Look at yourself from the side, not forgetting that you are in a calm and safe situation. End your “browsing” with the most routine activity for you that you often do at home: start reading, do the dishes, drink a cup of tea.

4. Don’t stop trying. Excessive fears, as a rule, speak of increased emotional sensitivity. This quality is positive, and therefore you should not fight it ruthlessly. Get used to situations that frighten you gradually, consulting with a psychotherapist if possible.

“Understand that healing is real”

Psychologies: Anxiety and phobia – are they related?

Elena Vrono: In the modern world, there are many diseases that humanity pays for the development of civilization, and phobias from among them. Life is becoming more and more stressful, and anxiety, as a natural defense mechanism, warns us of danger and forces us to act – to run or fight. Anxiety is necessary for survival, but it is this that, as a rule, triggers the phobia mechanism.

That is, an anxious person will eventually develop a phobia?

No, there is no fatal predisposition to this even in those who were born a little more anxious than the rest. But a constant disturbing background can become a risk factor, and in special circumstances disrupt the usual course of life.

One of my patients locked the door of the apartment for an infinitely long time, returning dozens of times and checking the lock. For the time being, he coped with his anxiety, until he had to simultaneously pass exams at the university and get a prestigious job. He was late for an important interview and could not get a job. It was at this moment that the peculiarity of his constitution – increased anxiety – turned into a disease.

How to behave when faced with a phobia?

It must be understood that healing from a phobia is real. Psychotherapeutic assistance, drug therapy, as well as a combination of both, are possible.

Here is one of the effective psychotherapeutic exercises: in a moment of panic, remember the state when you were happy, when you felt very good, pleasant, fun. Remember up to the sensations, up to the posture and try to immerse yourself in this state.

It is impossible to completely get rid of a phobia, but with the help of a specialist you can curb it, weaken its influence and achieve your own power over it – in this case, you can learn to cope with your fear and not let it interfere with your life.