Phobias - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

A phobia is defined in the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th Ed., 2013) as a type of anxiety disorder. When defining phobias, consideration must be taken to analyse the nature of anxiety, and how the intensity of the anxiety experienced by the individual surrounding the stimulus depends on the categorisation of the phobia. All individuals suffer from anxiety to a degree, for example through a stimulating event such as an exam, argument or interview and so forth. This anxiety…

Anxiety is not an unfamiliar experience to most people – one would have had experienced a sense of “nervousness”, usually characterized by worry and increased heartrate, in stressful situations such as a major examination or a job interview. These bouts of anxiety tend to be short-lived in normal people; while those suffering from an anxiety disorder are prolonged and more frequent, not necessarily associated with a stressor, and affect daily activities (Beyondblue Support Service, 2016). Anxiety disorder presents itself in…

As humans, everyone thinks and feels differently. The emotions experienced compels us to take action, big or small. Fear is a powerful emotion characterized by increased heart rate, high adrenaline levels, tense muscles, heavy breathing, or sweating. According to Merriam Webster, it can be defined as an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger. Personally, fear can be viewed as an obstacle between us and the things we are most capable of. It is the cold…

When I first walked into my AP US History class, I sat in the back and hoped to be invisible. I am not the outgoing person who raises their hand when a teacher ask for an answer. I am the one who goes into a classroom unseen, sits down and gets things done. The moment I heard Mr. Terrones explain how everyone in the class must “Stand up” when called on, terrified me. Public speaking makes me want to vomit,…

Prolonged and excessive fears are classified as phobias, which are a type of Anxiety disorder according to the DSM-IV. When the phobia takes over the persons ability to live a 'normal' life it is classed as a mental disorder, (psychopathology is the study of mental disorders). There are three types of phobias; specific phobias, social phobias and agoraphobia. Specific phobias are fears relating to something specific such as fear of animals, the most common including snakes, spiders, rodents and heights.…

There was a boy named Jake. Ever since he watched a movie about monsters, he had a phobia of them. Jake believed that there were monsters everywhere in all sizes. He thought that they could appear anywhere they wanted at any time they wanted. His parents kept on telling him that monsters didn't exist, but he didn't believe them. His siblings ad peers made fun of him, but he ignored them. Every night, he feels like there is a monster…

Trembling knees, sweaty palms, weakness and a sticky, heavy nightmare. Air travel often causes horror, forcing some to dampen fear in advance with alcohol, while others completely refuse to move through the air. However, this problem is not related to aviation, said Around the World pilot and psychologist Alexei Gervash, who has been relieving people of aerophobia for more than 10 years. On average, about 30% of people are afraid of flying on an airplane, and this amount does not…

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by anxiety in situations where the sufferer perceives certain environments as dangerous or uncomfortable, often due to the environment's vast openness or crowdedness. These situations include, but are not limited to, wide-open spaces, as well as uncontrollable social situations such as the possibility of being met in shopping malls, airports, and on bridges. Agoraphobia is defined within the DSM-IV TR as a subset of panic disorder, involving the fear of incurring a panic attack…

“Behind any conflict, whether it is in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sudan, genocide in Rwanda, apartheid in South Africa, problems in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine, you are sure to find racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia or a related intolerance. Without dealing with this frankly and honestly we cannot ever hope to achieve total respect for human rights” (Vorster, 2002). For centuries, countries have to deal with racial conflict. The growing problem of racial discrimination caught the public attention…

“The Tell-Tale Heart”, is a thrilling short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It is about the narrator's attempt to convince us that he is not crazy, just have keen senses as we realize when he says: “Why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharped my senses” (The Tell- Tale Heart, p. 44). He tries to persuade us of his innocence and his sanity telling how he was able to kill an old man, proprietor of the…

A woman had a fear of elevators and closed spaces. A psychologist helped her to remember the time when she experienced the fear for the first time. She was in a baby carriage and her mother had put her in a thick undershirt. It was too tight and she was trying to breathe. She constantly tried to pull herself up out of the baby carriage to be able to breathe, but she felt trapped and frightened. This remembered breathing restriction…

The Boogeyman is a legendary monster-like ghost usually feared by children. More often than not, parents use the Boogeyman to make the children go to sleep or to eat or to behave. This Boogeyman was said to have originated from Scotland where there are creatures called bogles, boggart, or bogies. Retrieved from: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Bogeyman Retrieved on: June 03, 2009 Bromidrosiphobia is the fear of body odor. It is also a neurosis where a person is induced to believing that…

Coulrophobia also know as clown phobia is very common in children. The University of Sheffield conducted a study in 2008 and concluded that a lot children did not like clown decorations in physicians' office settings or hospitals. The researchers questioned more than 250 kids ages between four to 16 on what they thought about the idea of using pictures of clowns to decorate a hospital children's ward. Dr Penny Curtis, a researcher, stated "we found that clowns are universally disliked…

I do not believe that I've never ever had a time in my life when I was not afraid of snakes. To me there is nothing more freighting than this crawling, scaly, unblinking reptile that male has actually abhorred considering that the start of time. The subfield that is primarily gotten in touch with fear is psychoanalytical psychology, behavioral psychology and neuropsychology. According to our text, Psychoanalysis is an approach of treatment based upon Freud's theory of personality, in which…

A phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear of an object, place or situation. Simple phobias are fears of specific things such as insects, infections, flying. Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where one feels "trapped" or unable to get help, such as in crowds, on a bus, or standing in a queue. A social phobia is a marked fear of social or performance situations. Phobias are extremely common. Sometimes they start in childhood for no apparent reason;…

Have you ever been on top of a large building and were too afraid to look over the side? Have you ever climbed a really tall tree and were too afraid to climb down? I have, when I was younger I climbed a really tall tree and when I got to the top I looked down, I was too afraid to climb back down. What I was experiencing was a fear of heights know as acrophobia. Acrophobia (n.d.) according to…

“Use classical conditioning principles to explain the development of phobias, and describe how systematic desensitization can be used to overcome fears and phobias. Illustrate with examples.” This essay explores the practices of classical conditioning and systematic desensitization in relation to phobias and fears. John Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning was able to ‘’explain all aspects of human psychology’’. Classical conditioning is the form of learning in which one stimulus is paired with another so that the organism…

Atelo means not being good enough and phobo means fear. Atelophobia: fear of imperfection. While a great number of us aim to be perfectionists, some of us take it too far. This could lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is definition of person making their life perfect. If they couldn’t achieve the absolute best, it may cause them to stress. However, people who have a type of behaviour that only draws in disappointment and compromised social relationship are known to have…

Social Phobia, also know as Social Anxiety Disorder, affects between 7 -13% of individuals in western society (Furmark, 2002). It usually presents during adolescences and is typically chronic and lifelong (Veale, 2003). Two theories have been commonly used to explain the development and maintenance of the phobia: learning theory and cognitive theory. Both theories alone do not provide a comprehensive treatment plan, however when used in conjunction are much more effective. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) identifies both behavioural and cognitive…