Phobias are a form of an anxiety disorder. They are typically classified as intense fears. Someone with a phobia often has an intense fear of either an object or a situation. The object of the fear is often not dangerous, but a person suffering from a phobia will often act like it is dangerous. Most phobias start during childhood and continue until they are treated or overcome. The National Institute of Mental Health has concluded through studies that phobias a more common in women than they are in men and over six million people in the United States suffer from some form of a phobia. The actual cause of phobias is unknown but they appear to run in the family.

Subtypes of Phobias

There are five subtypes of phobias. The first is phobias involving animals and the fear typically results from animals or insects. Second is natural environment phobias which are usually triggered by objects in the environments such as storms. Blood injection injury has it's own phobia subcategory which usually results when a person sees an invasive medical procedure. Fourth is situational phobias which care caused by situations such as elevators or flying. Finally there are other uncategorized phobias that are caused by stimulus such as choking or illness.

Diagnosis Criteria for Phobias

There are six specific signs that are used to diagnosis someone with a phobia. They are as follows:

You experience a fear that is both persistent and intense. Sometimes the fear will even occur before you seeing the object of your phobia or being an activity that causes the phobia.
Once you see the object or being the activity that causes your phobia anxiety usually develops right away and it may be intense enough that it becomes a panic attack.
You may even know that your fear is excessive and irrational which is a good indicator that it is triggered by a phobia.
You avoid certain objects or activities that may cause your phobia. Once you are exposed to your phobia the anxiety is often very intense.
You avoidance of certain objects or activities results in the normal daily functioning of your life such as work, school, relationships and social interaction. You may even spend most of your time worrying about your specific phobia.
Your fears are not a results of any other form of psychiatric disorder.

The final diagnostic criteria is perhaps the most important. There are panic disorders that have been known to cause fears of driving, flying or other specific phobias. However, the primary difference is that someone with a panic disorder fears the panic attacks that result from being trapped in any of the specific situations or confronted by specific objects. Someone with a phobia is afraid of the object or situation itself rather than the results. In addition, people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after an accident or crash will avoid the situation that caused their PTSD, but this is not a phobia. There are also people who are afraid of social situations but this can be as a result of social anxiety disorder not a phobia. Social anxiety disorders are a result of the interaction rather than the specific procedures or incidents like they are with phobias.

Cause and Occurrence of Phobias

It is believed that people develop phobias for things they cannot control. This is because danger comes from things we cannot control and danger is stressful to the human body. There are also many reasons why certain phobias are more common than others. For instance animal phobias are more common because there are few safe experiences when dealing with dangerous situations involving animals.

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