Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The truth about Phobias!

Sometimes, there's this Four letter word that drives even the bravest insane! It changes leadership, makes people spend more money, makes them spend less money as well, based on which side of it they are. Yes. Its called FEAR.

Though it may sound scary, the greeks called it PHOBIA, so as to reduce Phobophobia(Fear of phobias). Wikipedia tells me that 
phobia (from the GreekφόβοςPhóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is, when used in the context of clinical psychology, a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities.[1]


Interesting. In simpler terms, its a situation where a constant fear exists in a person's mind, which makes them do anything to avoid that fear facing situation. And many make money out of this phenomenon. In movies, for example, local vendors are afraid of thugs, hence give the bribe that they ask for! Though this might be related to an insecure feeling among the vendors, there is fear nevertheless.


Now what causes a phobia?

As i roamed around the streets of google, i did found a couple of places which gave me a decent insight into this issue. I suffer from Acrophobia and Tachophobia,  And since there's no specific term for "Fear of Amusement Parks", i rather mention it as it is. And its these things that made me roam around, in the first place. More of my fears later Lets first see what i found out about phobias: 

There are various factors which lead to the phobia arising. One such factor is Life experience, where an incident in the life of a person may reflect in his hatred towards the incident later on. One more crucial information is that if a child loves his/her parents, the parent's hatred/fear can trigger the initial stage of phobia. Even in that stage, the child does not fear like thier parent. But a personal experience of the parent's fear faced by the child, alone can develop the phobia. And some studies claim the linking of Gene inheritence as a resaon for a particular phobia.

Coming back to mine, i always had fear of heights and speed, for the same reason. Necrophobia. I had an experience of falling off from a vehicle during childhood, and falling off from my cycle when i first tried to learn it. And the fear of heights is because of fear of falling down if i slip and fall. A sense of insecurity in the second one, maybe. But why is that i really do not like the "Adrenaline Rush"? I can personally cite it to the genetics in the family where Arts and Science were given more important than adventure.

Anyway, guess i should stop with this as Sesquipedalophobic people might have already stopped reading this! :P