Related information
Relevant links:
Phobia treatment
Quickly conquering your phobia
Phobia is a fear of a specific object, animal or situation. Well-known examples are claustrophobia (small, confined spaces) and arachnophobia (spiders). The fear you experience is out of proportion compared to the real danger. Often you’ll try to avoid these objects or situations as much as possible.
Phobias can develop for many different things, such as:
- Animals: spiders, snakes, dogs, mice, chickens, etc.
- Situations: heights, small and confined spaces (claustrophobia), elevators, tunnels, bridges, etc.
- Natural phenomena: thunderstorms, storms, water, darkness
- Medical matters: blood, injury, needles
Phobias can be resolved. And quicker than you may think.
When you encounter the feared situation, the anxiety is often very strong. You’ll shake, sweat, faint or have a panic attack. Sometimes just looking at a picture of the object of your fear can be enough. You’ll avoid situations, which helps in the short term, but ultimately only increases the fear.
These specific phobias can originate in early childhood, or develop later in life. Some people have multiple phobias.
Apart from specific phobias, two types of general phobia occur: social phobia and agoraphobia (open spaces).
Phobia treatment
Phobias are highly treatable. One or two sessions of phobia treatment can already help to decrease anxiety and react differently to the feared situation. Mindspring uses modern and effective therapeutical methods such as hypnotherapy, NLP and EMDR.