Scared of heights? Acrophobia. Scared of spiders? Arachnophobia. What about the dark? Nyctophobia. People make fun of these common phobias all the time. Kids get laughed at and picked on for things like having a night light or not wanting to go on roller coasters. Though children don’t understand the harm in this, it’s important to understand how exactly why people develop phobias and how they are classified.

One of the theories for phobias is genetics: phobias can be passed down from your ancestors. This is evolutionarily advantageous because you know to stay away from dangerous stimuli such as spiders or snakes because you are preconditioned to be fearful of them. When you have a phobia, your sympathetic nervous system takes over and your fight or flight response kicks in when you experience the stimulus that you are afraid of. This is an autonomic response- you can act without thinking and processing, and this can help you survive if you immediately flee the stimulus.

Another theory for phobias is conditioning- you have a bad experience with something, and in the future, you automatically become anxious. This is also advantageous because you are protecting yourself from a stimulus that has harmed you in the past- self-preservation. Phobias are essentially your brain trying to protect you.

Having a clinically diagnosable phobia is, however, different than being scared of something. According to the DSM-V (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition), “A person who has a specific phobia disorder experiences significant and persistent fear when in the presence of, or anticipating the presence of, the object of fear, which may be an object, place or situation.” This means that it doesn’t have to be a physical object you are scared of to have a phobia, it can be something arbitrary, such as a fear of speaking in public, glossophobia.

There are many treatments for phobias. For some social phobias, there are medical treatments available, however, for the most part, phobias can be treated with therapy. One therapy option is exposure therapy; the therapist will expose you to the stimulus in small doses until you become comfortable with it. Another therapy option is flooding, or directly just exposing you completely to the stimulus you are afraid of until you become comfortable with it. For example, if you are afraid of dogs, you would be put into a room with a dog until you were okay with it.

Phobias are very common, and also treatable. Next time you want to make fun of someone for being afraid of something, remember: they might have an evolutionary edge on you. If you want to learn more about phobias, their treatments, or see a list of possible phobias, check out the links in the citations. As always, with understanding comes acceptance.

Citations:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/phob...

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn...

http://phobialist.com/

http://www.simplypsychology.org/behavioral-therapy...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-ne...