How Therapy Can Help with Phobias
The mere thought of a spider makes your skin crawl. The idea of getting on an airplane or standing on a high balcony fills you with a sense of terror. We all have things we are afraid of, but for some people, the fear of a specific object or situation is so intense and irrational that it interferes with their life. This is known as a specific phobia.
At Televero Health, we want you to know that if you have a phobia, you are not alone. Phobias are one of the most common types of anxiety disorders. And while the fear they cause can be paralyzing, the good news is that they are also one of the most treatable conditions in all of psychiatry.
What Is a Specific Phobia?
A specific phobia is an excessive and persistent fear of a distinct object or situation. The fear is out of proportion to the actual danger posed. A person with a phobia often recognizes that their fear is irrational, but they feel powerless to control their reaction. The exposure to the feared object or situation, or even just the anticipation of it, provokes an immediate and intense anxiety response, which can sometimes escalate into a full-blown panic attack.
Phobias are generally categorized into a few main types:
- Animal Type: Fear of animals or insects, such as spiders (arachnophobia), snakes, or dogs.
- Natural Environment Type: Fear of things in the natural world, such as heights (acrophobia), storms, or water.
- Situational Type: Fear of specific situations, such as flying, driving, elevators, or enclosed spaces (claustrophobia).
- Blood-Injection-Injury (BII) Type: Fear of seeing blood, receiving an injection, or other medical procedures. This type is unique because it often causes a drop in blood pressure and can lead to fainting.
The hallmark of a phobia is avoidance. A person will go to great lengths to avoid the object or situation they fear. Someone with a fear of flying might turn down a dream job that requires travel. Someone with a fear of dogs might refuse to go to a park. This avoidance is what maintains the phobia and allows it to have a significant impact on a person’s life.
How Are Phobias Treated?
While medication can sometimes be used to manage the anxiety in the short term (for example, taking a benzodiazepine before a necessary flight), the definitive, gold-standard treatment for specific phobias is a type of psychotherapy called exposure therapy.
The idea behind exposure therapy is simple: to break the cycle of avoidance, you must gradually and safely confront your fear. By doing so, your brain learns through experience that the thing you fear is not actually dangerous and that your anxiety will naturally subside without you having to escape. This process is called habituation.
Exposure therapy is done in a very careful, structured, and collaborative way with a therapist. You are always in control. The process typically involves:
- Creating a Fear Hierarchy: You and your therapist will create a list of feared situations, ranked from the least scary to the most scary. For a spider phobia, this might start with looking at a cartoon drawing of a spider and end with being in the same room as a real spider in a container.
- Gradual Exposure: You start at the bottom of your hierarchy. You will confront the least scary situation and stay in it until your anxiety naturally decreases. You will practice this step until it no longer causes you significant fear.
- Moving Up the Hierarchy: Once you have mastered one step, you move on to the next, slightly more challenging one. You continue this process, moving at your own pace, until you have confronted the situations at the top of your hierarchy.
This process systematically desensitizes you to your fear. It rewires your brain’s fear response, teaching it that you can handle the situation and that the anxiety will pass. It is an incredibly empowering process that can often produce lasting results in a relatively short amount of time.
If an irrational fear is limiting your life, you do not have to live with it. Effective, evidence-based treatment can help you to face your fear and reclaim your freedom.
Key Takeaways
- A specific phobia is an intense, irrational fear of an object or situation that is out of proportion to the actual danger.
- The hallmark of a phobia is the avoidance of the feared stimulus, which can significantly interfere with a person’s life.
- The most effective treatment for phobias is a type of psychotherapy called exposure therapy.
- Exposure therapy works by helping you to gradually and safely confront your fear in a controlled way, which allows your brain to learn that the situation is not dangerous.
Ready to take the first step? We can help. Get started with Televero Health today.