In: Psychology
Pycholoanalyst point of view:
A psychonanalyst will define child's fear of the dark through freud's psychoanalytic theory. According to freud a child's fear of the dark is the result of their unresolved conflict between id and super ego. Id works on the pleaure principle, it wants the immediate gratification of the need while super ego is the ethical component of the personality when thier is a conflict between the two, it creates a sense of guilt which leads unwanted a behaviours like phobic behaviours. So Freud theorise that phobic behaviours is the result of superego repressing the desired of Id.
One of the most common desires for id is to have sexual relations with the mother and super ego represses this desire that leads to a conflict between the two. According to Freud lot of unrelated phobias were the result of desire of having sexual relations with the mother.
Behaviorist point of view: According to behaviorist, phobia are reflexive response to the legitimate fears which become associated with non harmfull environmental factors. For example. a fear of poisnous snake can get associated with non poisnous snake resulting to the phobic reactions to all the snakes. Unlike psychoanalysts behaviorist focus on individuals responses to the environment and not on internal conflicts.