Such different phobias

Having rummaged through medical reference books in search of a definition of phobia, we read something like “a pathological reaction of fear to a stimulus.” But here’s the question: how to separate ordinary fear from pathological fear, where ordinary fear ends and phobia begins? Let us immediately note that there is no clear boundary in principle. But still, in some cases we can talk about the unambiguous presence of a phobia. First of all, this is the presence of panic attacks with pronounced physiological reactions in the form of numbness, darkening of the eyes, wobbly legs, “cotton” limbs, profuse effusion, a heart literally bursting out of the chest... But we can talk about a phobia without all this, if fear gets in the way carry out necessary daily activities. For example, if an electrician is afraid of electric shock and therefore avoids work, then there is definitely something wrong with him. Another sign of a phobia, and not ordinary fear, is the fear of something that is not actually capable of causing harm. For example, fear of the dark in a safe locked apartment, fear of new clean clothes intended for a deceased person, etc.

Origin of phobias

In some cases, the mechanism of formation of a phobia is transparent and simple. After an incident on the water that almost ended in drowning, it is quite natural to develop a fear of water. Such phobias are relatively easy to treat. Difficulties arise when we are faced with a strange phobia that has come from out of nowhere (and not from childhood), like the fear of spiders among a native resident of Kharkov. Such cases require the use of a modeling method or other techniques that allow tracking associative chains. In our example, we will have to find out what a person associates spiders with, and only then will we get a complete and truthful picture of fear with which we can work further.

Types of phobias

The most common are social phobia - fear of communication, public speaking, and agoraphobia - fear of open spaces. They are closely followed by claustrophobia - the fear of closed spaces. Less common are fears of blood, spiders, snakes, mice, water, fire, heights, corpses, funeral supplies, darkness, and various diseases. There are also very rare phobias - fear of mirrors, walking across a bridge, or being in certain rooms and on certain types of terrain or with certain types of people.

In principle, almost anything can become a phobia, but one should not go to extremes and confuse a phobia with ordinary fear. For example, every normal person is afraid of heights, but this does not mean that he has a phobia. In the same way, people have a genetic aversion to insects and arthropods. This has a completely reasonable reason - for tens of thousands of years they have been stinging, biting and infecting our ancestors, so a normal person would not rejoice at the sight of a lice or a pot-bellied spider. But we can reasonably talk about a phobia only when the sight of an ordinary house spider or mouse causes a panic attack.

Why does ergophobia begin?

Everyone knows that any phobia begins with fear. Phobia to work is no exception; it is based on fear associated with work. Psychologists identify the most common types of fear that cause it:

The fear of getting a new job visits an emotional person who, during an interview, experiences strong confusion and excitement at the sight of his superiors. The reason for this state is lack of confidence in one’s strengths and capabilities. To reduce anxiety and worry, you can preview your future job and job responsibilities. Being informed, an ergophobe will feel more confident in new conditions.
Fear when doing work appears due to professional uncertainty. Hyper-responsible individuals prone to self-criticism can experience similar anxiety. The employee has a feeling of constant anxiety about not being able to complete the work. The likelihood of ergophobia is especially high when professional activities are often checked by superiors. To avoid a phobia, it is recommended to try your hand at a more acceptable direction in the profession.
Fear as a result of work injury. It often occurs due to the occurrence of a specific traumatic situation, but workers react to what happened in different ways. Some try to behave more attentively and carefully, others are in a hurry to change jobs. People belonging to the second group are the most vulnerable to ergophobia.

Important! Ergophobia is often associated with a fear of social contacts and social phobia. A person develops a fear of the team and is unable to establish contacts with colleagues, which negatively affects his professional activities. In most cases, this means losing your job.

Fear of work can be caused by social reasons, difficulties communicating with colleagues

Treatment methods for phobias

Today, cognitive psychotherapy is recognized as the most effective method of treating phobias. The fact is that most often a phobia is a fear of something that is not actually capable of causing harm, or is only hypothetically capable. In other words, it is a misguided fear that has no basis in reality. Therefore, by correcting the perception scheme in the best traditions of cognitive psychotherapy, we achieve adequacy - we learn to be afraid of what is truly terrible, and not pay attention to the rest. The effect will be especially good if thanatotherapy is used in combination with cognitive psychotherapy.

Phobias set boundaries in life and make a person suffer. But Swedish scientists have developed a method to help people get rid of fears. It is also suitable for treatment of other common anxiety disorders. The method is based on the principles of exposure therapy and an understanding of how memory works and how the brain records strong fears. The study was carried out by the Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University, and the results were published in the journal Current Biology. Scientists focused on patients with arachnophobia to see if fear could be overcome by invading a person's memory. The easiest way to influence memory is when it is in an unstable state. Between 5 and 10% of the Swedish population suffer from various types of specific phobias - fear of insects, reptiles, heights or needles. This greatly limits them in everyday life. “Those with a particular phobia may find it difficult to do certain things, for example, those with arachnophobia cannot go down to the basement,” explains one of the study’s authors, Johannes Björkstrand. The Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University in their work built on previous data on exposure therapy methods, when the memory of fears is awakened by creating certain conditions. People without phobias are shown images, some of which are accompanied by mild electrical shocks, to create a feeling of aversion. Scientists noticed that the very next day, the experiment participants began to be afraid of pictures that were associated with electric shock. “We wanted to test the mechanism that arises during the fear experiments, but it was important to test it on material from lifelong fears, that is, phobias,” says Johannes Björkstrand.

Sabah 06/09/2014 The Telegraph UK 09/08/2013 Latvian News 03/22/2010 Business 08/18/2006 Scientists have wondered whether those suffering from arachnophobia would be less afraid if they interfered with the process of retrieving memories - the so-called reconsolidation.
Once a person forms a memory, for example, that he is afraid of spiders, it is stored in the brain's long-term memory. Every time a person remembers spiders, the brain accesses the existing information, and it is updated and stored again. At the moment when this happens, the memory state is unstable and can be disrupted, explains Johannes Björkstrand. “Our goal was to test this feature and see if long-term phobias could be affected.” The experiment involved 45 volunteers with long-standing arachnophobia, who were divided into two groups, each of which was shown four pictures of spiders for several minutes to awaken the memory of the fear. After a ten-minute break, the first group was shown another series of pictures with spiders, and the second group saw them only six hours later. In other words, it was the same type of exposure, but with a greatly increased delay after fear memory activation. While the images were shown, participants' levels of brain activity were measured, focusing on the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with intense fear. It turned out that the first group of participants with a short interval between the activation of fear and the observation of new pictures with spiders had a lower intensity of fear than the second group. This is due to the fact that within six hours the re-saving process had time to complete, the memory returned to a stable state, and it could no longer be influenced. According to Johannes Björkstrand, the results of the first group indicate that the method can help relieve patients of fears. “When memory is unstable, it is easier to influence it, for example, to increase the longevity of the effect. We hope that we will learn how to rid people of phobias forever.” In addition, scientists believe that the memory manipulation method can be an effective therapy for other anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, and post-traumatic stress. About 30% of people suffer from some form of anxiety at least once in their lives. However, the method must undergo more tests before it can be applied to patients. One of the most reliable types of exposure therapy today involves patients, under the supervision of a specialist, for three hours step by step experiencing emotions associated, for example, with spiders. But such treatment does not help everyone, and fear may return, even if the results of therapy are initially considered successful. “In the future, our method could become a fairly simple improvement on existing forms of exposure therapy. Now we want to show that such a method exists and that it works,” reports Johannes Björkstrand. Phobias and anxiety disorders Most often, the cause of a phobia is unknown.
There are hereditary phobias and anxiety disorders. A phobia can greatly interfere with a person's daily life because they are unable to control their exaggerated fear. Symptoms include rapid heartbeat, sweating, difficulty breathing, and trembling. In cases of fear of blood, blood pressure often drops, so that the person breaks out in a cold sweat and may lose consciousness. Phobias are more often directed toward timeless dangers, such as insects, snakes, heights, as opposed to modern sources of fear, such as cars or weapons. Treatment for phobias is called exposure therapy: a person gradually learns to accept what causes strong hostility in him. InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively from foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

How to cure a phobia yourself?

It is clear that it is best to contact a specialist. But you can try to cope with the phobia yourself, especially if it is not too strong. There are different methods for independent use, and now we will briefly dwell on two of them. Let's take nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, as an example. Where is it darkest? That's right, in the toilet. That's where we'll go for the therapeutic session. First, let's enter a dark bathroom in bright light in the apartment and leave the door open. Scary? Probably not, because it's not dark enough. Let's start slowly closing the door and try to determine the threshold when it becomes scary. How small should the gap in the doorway be - 50 centimeters, 20, or 5? Having precisely determined the threshold of darkness beyond which fear begins, let’s sit down and think more deeply. What exactly is scary? What terrible thing is about to happen? Let's try to formulate the content of fear as specifically as possible. We listen to the sensations in the body - heart, breathing, sweat, trembling in the chest, tension in the neck and stomach... The more detailed all phenomena are described, the better. Ideally, you should not be lazy and write it down on paper. Next, we try to open the door slightly so that it is no longer scary, then close it again and compare the sensations. After the procedure is done several times in a row, we will be surprised to find that fear subsides, and even the symptoms of a panic attack (if any) disappear. A panic attack is a labor-intensive thing for the body, and cannot withstand rapid “on” and “off” several times in a row. Sometimes this method alone is enough to completely get rid of mild nyctophobia. In more severe and persistent cases, additional techniques are required.

Desensitization is also a good treatment for phobias. The desensitization method is based on the fact that it is common for a person to tense up during the excruciating fear caused by a phobia. If you learn to relax properly during the phobia, the fear will gradually go away. Continuing the example about the treatment of nyctophobia, let’s lie down on the sofa in a fairly darkened room and practice autogenic training. But thanatotherapy will give a much stronger effect. With the help of a psychotherapist who knows this method, it is possible to relax so much that not only does fear disappear, but also in its place comes an unusually pleasant feeling of deep inner comfort forgotten somewhere in distant childhood.

Symptoms of fear

It is easy to distinguish a phobia from ordinary “reasonable” fear. If, at the sight of a spider crawling along the wall, a woman squeals and hits the insect with a slipper, and ants in the house are destroyed without hesitation, this is not yet a reason to go to a psychotherapist. But if, having seen a spider, she suddenly begins to choke and tremble, she experiences nausea and diarrhea, then things are bad. And the unfortunate woman most likely has arachnophobia (fear of spiders). In other words, every phobia is a fear neurosis.

— When seeing an object of fear, a person experiences the following physical symptoms: rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), increased blood pressure, trembling. His mouth becomes dry, he sweats profusely, is out of breath, feels chest pain, nausea and discomfort in his stomach. — says Valery Shishkov. - If the phobia is intense, the patient will feel dizzy and the temperature will rise, and there may be a fear of going crazy or dying. The main sign of a phobia is that a person will consciously or unconsciously avoid situations that frighten him in every possible way. For example, I had a patient who refused to cross the road - she was terrified that she would be run over by a car. Fear of floods is a St. Petersburg “attraction” What kind of phobias people have! From the well-known claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) to exotic acribophobia (fear of not understanding the meaning of what you read) or androphobia (this is when a woman does not allow men to approach her).

The strangest phobias Telephonephobia - fear of talking on the phone Triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13 Climacophobia - fear of walking up stairs Fengobofia - fear of sunlight Graphophobia - fear of writing, picking up writing utensils Logophobia - fear of forgetting how to say words Ticketophobia - fear of incorrectly filling out receipts Urophobia - fear the urge to urinate in the absence of a toilet Blennophobia - fear of mucus

“The most common are fears of enclosed spaces, darkness, heights and animals,” says Valery Shishkov. — We have to deal with the fear of natural disasters a little less often. For example, St. Petersburg residents suffer from a fear of floods. The nature of the occurrence of fears is not fully understood, but they usually appear in people with increased anxiety and good imagination. Sometimes the cause of a phobia is a trauma experienced in the past - for example, a girl who was raped may subsequently experience a fear of the dark or of gateways. Many anxious and suspicious people are characterized by fears for their health. So, one of my patients, after every protected sexual contact with a regular girlfriend, ran to get tested for AIDS, and another was panicky afraid of any mole on the body and did not leave the oncologist’s office - he was waiting for death from skin cancer! Phobia can ruin your career

Shy and complex people sometimes develop so-called social phobias, which can easily ruin a person’s career and personal life. The main symptom of such a phobia is fear of the opinions or increased attention of others. “They once brought me a girl who had just quit a promising position,” recalls Valery Shishkov. “She was predicted to have a brilliant career, and no one could understand the reasons for her dismissal until she admitted to her relatives that... she blushes in public!” This circumstance caused her such torment that she chose to leave work, just so as not to suffer from the fact that “everyone is looking at her and laughing at her red cheeks.” Sometimes phobias are accompanied by obsessive rituals. An example of a harmless ritual is that we all knock on wood in the hope that what we say will not come true. And one of my patients, who was afraid of getting gastrointestinal disorders due to dirt, washed her food ten times, threw out her small child’s toys that had fallen on the floor, and every time after going outside she washed all her clothes and washed herself for several hours. Her husband brought her to the reception because she began to demand similar rituals from him. Is fear born in the maternity hospital?

What did the great Napoleons fear - white horses? Psychiatrists see two phobias here at once: fear of horses (hippophobia) and fear of the color white (leukophobia). Peter the Great - empty spaces (spaceophobia). Therefore, his palaces were always small rooms with low ceilings. Gogol - to be buried alive (tatephobia). This fear was so strong that the writer repeatedly gave written instructions to bury him only when signs of obvious decomposition appeared. Stalin - air travel and poisoning (toxicophobia).

Where do fears come from? Psychologists are still arguing about this issue. Some people believe that all phobias are dictated by the fear of death. Adherents of another theory are sure that our neuroses “come from childhood.” If an impressionable child was “twisted” by nervous parents, then in adulthood he is almost guaranteed to have one or another phobia. There is even an original theory that everything is to blame... childbirth. They say that after peace and security in the womb, the fetus is expelled from the uterus and crawls through the birth canal in agony. “No matter where fear comes from, it cannot be ignored, as most people do,” Valery Shishkov is sure. — Practice shows that St. Petersburg residents are ashamed to see a doctor. Someone is afraid that he will be taken for an abnormality. And one businessman patient even told me that a psychotherapist is for the weak (although he himself was terribly afraid of the dark). The worst thing is that phobias, like a snowball rushing down a mountain, gain momentum and can destroy a person’s psyche. They often become manifestations of more severe mental disorders that need to be treated before it is too late. And for older people and hypertensive patients, panic attacks can be simply dangerous - every increase in pressure and heartbeat is fraught for them with a crisis or heart attack.

Way to get rid of fear number 1 - “Mirror Method”. The human psyche itself builds a defense against attacks of fear; you just need to “strengthen” it. For example, there is a technique when a person goes to the mirror and, looking at his reflection, says: “I am very, very scared.” In this way, he transfers all fears to the reflection - that is, to another person. Way to get rid of fear No. 2

- "Fight fire with fire". There is a folk method of teaching swimming - a child is thrown into the water in a deep place. In much the same way, you can force a person to overcome his fear. For example, locking a claustrophobic person in an elevator. But this method is very risky, as it can lead to the opposite consequences - a person caught in an extreme situation will not be able to withstand the stress and will “break.” Therefore, immersion in a frightening situation should take place gradually under the supervision of a specialist. For example, a child with a fear of the dark first locks his toy in a dark room, then goes there with his mother, and the next time he is alone, but at the same time a gap of light is left for him... Way to get rid of fear No. 3

— “The projectionist method.” In order to overcome a phobia, it is not necessary to find yourself in a real stressful situation. It’s enough to imagine it, mentally transport yourself to the cinema - as if you are a spectator and see a frightening situation on the screen. The next step is to imagine that you are watching a “movie” not from the auditorium, but from the projectionist’s booth. But the projectionist can control the film. Click the Pause button. Make the image stop. When you learn to do this, fear will dull or disappear altogether. Way to get rid of fear No. 4

— Autogenic training. This is a well-known technique that is taught to people who find themselves in extreme situations, for example, firefighters or rescuers. It contains elements of yoga, relaxation and self-hypnosis. So, during a panic attack, you need to relax your muscles, imagine pleasant sensory images (for example, a blowing breeze, birds singing) and say to yourself (exhaling with each word): “I am absolutely calm.”

Lyubov Rumyantseva

© Dr. Peter

How not to treat a phobia

And in conclusion, a few words about how not to treat phobias. One of the biggest mistakes is trying to treat phobias with medication. It must be clearly understood that there are no specific drugs to treat fear of snakes or fear of being struck by lightning! Trying to treat a phobia with medication is the same as trying to treat with medication the inability to find a common language with your parents. With phobias, there is no physiological disturbance, therefore, chemistry cannot help the matter in any way. Unscrupulous psychiatrists sometimes prescribe drugs for phobias that depress the psyche as a whole. The state of stupor into which a person plunges after such “treatment” really relieves fear. But do you need it?

And the entire Internet is filled with copies of the same text on treating phobias in one session using visualization in the spirit of NLP. Let's be honest and sensible people, and admit that this method will work in one case out of a thousand, and only if you're very lucky. NLP has quite effective techniques, but the psyche is not plasticine, and cannot be restructured once and for all in a few minutes. I wish you success in the fight against phobias!

What is catagelophobia?

Most often, those who treat themselves very strictly suffer from psychopathology.

Catagelophobia is one of the social phobias, which is characterized by the fear of ridicule in one’s direction. A person with such fear constantly expects that someone is about to start making fun of him. Thoughts about this do not give him peace for a minute.

A person with catagelophobia expects unpleasant comments addressed to him even when there are no objective reasons for this. This is one of his main problems.

There are two types of people who suffer from fear of ridicule:

They are self-critical. They are characterized by such a trait as demandingness. They try to hide any shortcomings or present them favorably. All this is done so that others do not find a reason to ridicule such a person.
They try to make the maximum amount of effort in order not to become a participant in a difficult situation. They try to protect themselves from society so as not to once again give people a reason to find a flaw and humiliatingly ridicule it.

Because of a phobia, a person is deprived of the opportunity to realize himself as an individual and a professional in a particular matter. He misses chances to achieve important goals and fulfillment of desires.

Causes

Fear of ridicule is caused by various reasons that influence a person’s life in one way or another.

The feeling of fear is inherent in every person, which is considered a completely normal phenomenon. But with this violation, it acquires the features of mania caused by an imaginary threat from society.

The following factors lead to a psychological problem:

Hereditary predisposition. The phobia can be passed on to a child from his parents, who were tormented by the fear of being ridiculed by other people.
A traumatic event that occurred in childhood. Often, it is during this period that something can happen that remains in the subconscious for a long time. The delayed experience then affects the thoughts and actions of an adult.
Bad experience. An action may have been taken that did not lead to success. As a result, fear arises, forcing a person to refuse to take decisive steps.

The fear of being ridiculed may not only be caused by personal experience. Sometimes it occurs after receiving information from friends, while watching TV or reading a book. In any listed source there is something that causes and reinforces this phobia.

Symptoms

The person begins to sweat rapidly

Like any mental disorder, a phobia is accompanied by a number of symptoms that determine its presence.

The main symptom of catagelophobia is the fear of being ridiculed by other people.

The disorder is often accompanied by symptoms that have physical manifestations. We are talking about the following painful conditions:

Cardiopalmus.
Decreased or increased blood pressure.
Pupil dilation.
Tremors in legs and arms.
Increased sweating.
Redness or paleness of the skin.

These symptoms are usually used to identify a person as having a panic attack or severe fear.