A phobia is a kind of anxiety disorder that makes a person react in an extreme and irrational manner to a given situation. The situation may have to do with contact with a living creature such as a cockroach or a rat, a place, or an object or perhaps a particular situation such as seeing the erect penis of a urinating man by a woman who has been raped before. A phobia, therefore, is an unusual mental condition that causes a person to respond in an uncontrolled manner to any of the situations we have described above.
It is regarded as a mental disorder with the capacity to prevent a sufferer from being able to function optimally or even normally in a given situation. People who experience phobias will go to extreme lengths to avoid the source of their fear. Most people will respond with a sudden, intense fear to whatever upsets them mentally and psychologically in a panic attack that can last for several minutes. This kind of fearful reaction to an object, living thing or situation would typically have been present in the affected individual for a period exceeding six months. Many times, this irrational fear is directed at something that is most unlikely to cause any harm. Despite that known quantity, sufferers are not often persuaded that there can be no harm resulting from contact with the situations that they fear. Such fears can cause functional impairment or disruptions to their lifestyle.
The various descriptions used above essentially demonstrate that there is a marked difference between fear and phobia. Fear is a temporary disruption due to a specific event while a phobia tends to be permanent. As a means to distinguish the two, we will recall here that about two years ago, we discussed the fright, fight and flight response, which typically determines the range of options that our brains evaluate and act upon when we are faced with danger. When the brain perceives such dangers, it activates an internal alarm system which serves to warn you of the relevant danger. It is a measure of self-preservation that we feel fear. When there is no fear, human beings will be putting themselves in immense danger and some of these may be life-threatening and so, it is proper for the brain to prime the individual to respond as appropriate. On the other hand, a phobia is a system that pushes that early warning system of the brain into overdrive, in which case the degree of danger is overestimated, such that the reaction is also too much in reaction to the overstated danger. The brain then teaches itself to avoid that kind of situation in the future. This linkage firmly establishes the connection between a particular event and the response it provokes. Therefore, one of the ways in which this abnormal situation can be treated is to help people understand that the situation is an exaggerated response to a normal provocation.
One useful way of looking at this phenomenon is to appreciate that we are all afraid of snakes. But that kind of fear is meant for our own good and will help us develop safe ways of relating to snakes. The situation is different when the source of fear is the family’s pet dog. Such an intense kind of fear arising from contact with a domestic animal is likely to be judged as irrational. In the same way, some people have felt either anxious or nervous within a social setting at some point in their lives. One such common situation is stage fright, which often overwhelms a lot of people when they are due to speak to an audience for the first time. That may be a natural feeling but when the experience does not go away, and becomes a miserable part of one’s life such that fear and embarrassment at the judgement of other people become concerning factors, then it becomes a phobia. The kind of phobia that encompasses such situations is described as a social phobia and it can be severe enough to make people avoid all meetings with new people, talking to colleagues at work or being forced to join the school’s debating team despite exhibiting a morbid fear of a watching crowd. The opposite situation is known as agoraphobia where people are afraid that being in certain situations could prevent them from accessing the help they need within a crowd or open space.
Such people also fear that they may not be able to escape in a given situation and therefore become terrified of being on a bus, or other forms of public transportation. They may also be scared of being in a crowd for that reason or for being alone somewhere that has a lot of people around such as a football stadium. This particular abnormality is more common in girls and women than in males. There are some general phobias and there are specific ones as well. However, all phobias fall under the category of anxiety disorders. Specific phobias may include an intense fear of animals like dogs and spiders. There may be phobias of natural phenomena like heights and storms or phobias for situations like being in a plane or a car. In one situation about 12 years ago, a young woman began to scream in sheer terror after a plane in which she was travelling took off on a flight to Lagos from Abuja. She had to be physically restrained and an oxygen mask was placed over her face before she became calm. With the cool moist air blowing over her face, she became convinced that she was obtaining treatment. She wore that mask for the entire duration of the flight. In another case, a young man turned down an important offer to work for a tobacco company when he discovered that their office was located in the 13th floor of the building; he had a fear of heights.
The reasons people develop phobias are not clearly understood. Specific phobias tend to develop in childhood when the developing brain is trying to formulate a range of responses to different situations in the environment around them. A typical example is a child who develops a phobia for chickens after being brutally pecked by a hen protecting its chicks. However, such experiences in childhood represent just one possible way by which the complex changes in normal behaviour are observed in various people. Other factors include specific environmental exposures and genetic peculiarities. This is also the pattern that governs the social anxiety disorders notable in teenagers and agoraphobia. The former is more often seen among teenagers because of the surge in hormones and the effect of social pressures exerted on them by their peers. On the other hand, situations like agoraphobia and panic disorders have a lot of overlap and will typically begin in the early part of adulthood. Therefore, excessive protection from one’s parents is one factor that can contribute to environmental pressures that make a person develop a phobia. Physical abuse such as a situation of marital disharmony or excessive use of corporal punishment by a parent against a child can have grave repercussions in later years primarily resulting in a phobia. The same is true for people who have suffered sexual abuse.
The common symptoms of phobia are a racing heart and an intense kind of fear that far exceeds the kind of danger the offending feature can possibly present. There may be difficulty with breathing and the mouth will turn dry. At the same time, the person is likely to break out in a cold sweat; there may be nausea and a feeling of tightness within the chest. The person may also begin to tremble. Sometimes, such a person is immobilised by fear and may develop a feeling of an impending catastrophe. This aspect of experiencing fear has several aspects and one of them is the fear of losing control of the situation but feeling paradoxical, an inability to stop or control such fear. In the end, there is an intense desire to escape, which usually aggravates the feeling of fear and worsens the panic in a vicious cycle.
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