2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Phobia treatment: concept, types, symptoms, theory of phobias
Phobia comes from the Greek word φόβος meaning disgust, fear, or mortal fear.
In medicine, phobia is a symptom, the essence of which is an irrational uncontrollable fear or a persistent experience of excessive anxiety in certain situations or in the presence (expectation) of an object.
Objective criteria for the presence of phobias and fears
- On a conscious level, discomfort interferes with purposeful action. For example, a guy wants to get to know each other, to speak in front of an audience, and the discomfort is so great that it prevents him from achieving his goal, that is, he cannot control bodily reactions with his mind.
- At the subconscious (physiological) level, the recollection of a traumatic situation causes an uncontrollable bodily reaction, a tangible discomfort arises. For example, a loved one crashed in a car accident, and the client cannot help but think about the tragedy, the feeling of hopelessness, guilt, fear constantly rolls over. The topic, as they say, has become sore, it is difficult to talk about the past without worries.
The clinical manifestation of phobias includes four groups of symptoms:
1) Physical or somatic symptoms that result from over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system and skeletal muscle tension.
2) Psychological symptoms of phobia: a sense of expectation of the worst, tension and anxiety; violation of concentration of attention; sensitivity to noise; a feeling of memory impairment; observing or expecting somatic signs; obsessions about the approach of unpleasant sensations; deja vu; feeling that "the head has become empty" and there are no thoughts.
3) Cognitive effect of anxiety: Patients often exaggerate existing autonomic symptoms. For example, they fear that dizziness is the result of tumor formation and will lead to death.
4) Behavioral effects of anxiety. Manifested by changes in sleep patterns, nervous habits and increased motor activity. This also includes panic attacks.
The main symptom for making and confirming the diagnosis of "anxiety-phobic disorder" is the onset of a paroxysmal feeling of intense fear.
The phobias themselves can vary. The International Classification of Diseases divides phobias into three main groups: specific phobias, social phobia, and agoraphobia.
● Specific phobias include fear of specific objects and biological phenomena. In general, there are four main types of specific phobias:
○ Phobias of the natural environment - fear of lightning, water, storm, etc.
○ Fear of animals - fear of snakes, rodents, spiders.
○ Medical concerns - related to fear of blood, receiving an injection, visiting a doctor, etc.
○ Situational phobias - fear of bridges, leaving home, driving, etc.
● Social phobia involves fear of interacting with others and evaluating them. Often such phobias lead to negative experiences in the communication process.
● Agorophobia is a generalized fear of being outside a safe place. For example, leave your home or other safe area.
Treatment of phobias in cognitive behavioral therapy
Cognitive psychotherapy was founded in the 1960s by the writings of Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis.
At the moment, cognitive behavioral therapy is the most recognized in the scientific community, and one of the most effective areas of psychotherapy.
This direction is based on the idea, according to which the feelings and behavior of a person is determined not by the situation in which he found himself, but by his perception of this situation.
From here, the basic formula of cognitive therapy was formulated, the ABC formula, where
And - these are some events-stimuli that occur in our life.
B is a cognitive component that implies the process of perceiving a situation in the form of thoughts, beliefs, representations.
C is the output we have.
The article considers human behavior and emotions arising from the interpretation of this situation.
The psychotherapy process is a short course, usually consisting of 10 to 20 sessions. The frequency of the sessions is 1 - 2 times a week.
Typically, patients receive "homework" in the form of special psychological exercises and study of literature on cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy includes both behavioral and cognitive techniques.
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