Question

Explain the basic premise of how phobias occur and one effective therapy that psychologist can use to treat them. Use a specific phobia in your answer to demonstrate your understanding.

Answer 1

Phobia is an extreme fear or anxiety or a particular object or situation. This kind of fear occurs when constantly whenever they are in view of that particular object or situation. There are many different kinds of phobias and each person has their own type as well. Nobody can be certain as to exactly where or when the onset of these phobias occur as they are so unique in nature.

Usually it is said that majority of the phobias start during early childhood and through teenage years. But mostly never the sudden onset of a phobia does not occur in a grown adult. It is usually from the develpment years and gradually increases or slows down.

Sometimes there is something that hapens in our childhoold which could be the onset of the phobia and this could gradually progres overthe course of his or her life. Usually phobias are not genetic but the fear that a parent has for something can be instilled into the child as well. For example if a mother is scared of cockroaches and everytime she sees one at her house she screams or runs away they child will also start imitating that fear and he would view that cockroach as something so deadly as even his mother os afraid of it unknowing to the child that th cockroach is more scared of the human than the other way around.

There are many types of phobias which range from samll ones to drastic phobias. If it is a small phobia which is something like the fear of snakes called ophidiophobia they person can be helped using a cognitive behavioural therepy. In this therepy we focus on trying to change the behaviour of the person towards the particular phobia. First the person is counselled about the problem and is told that nothing is wrong with it. The next step would involve showing a few pictures or videos to the person and lastly trying to show them a snake in the zoo in a protected environment. This could slowly reduce the phobia and make them to a proper state with that phobia.

For more complex phobias,sometimes there is no cure and only medication can be given for example ablutophobia which is the fear of bathing, cleaning or washing. Here they have to given depressants or other medication to ease them of their pain. Usually though when the phoia is quite simple people ted to find it easier to avoid it than actually facing their fear and overcoming it.