Many people may feel uncomfortable seeing blood or spiders or being high up. If your fear is so strong that it prevents you from living your life the way you want, it’s known as specific phobia. Effective treatment is available that can cure most people.
Specific phobia means that you have an extreme and persistent fear of a specific object or situation. When you come into contact with that object or situation, you may react with anxiety and great discomfort or panic. Finding something unpleasant doesn’t mean that you have a phobia. If you go to great lengths to avoid the fear and it interferes with your life, you might have a phobia.
Specific phobia usually debuts early in life, before the age of ten. The exception is fear of specific situations, which usually arises after puberty. A phobia can be genetic and stem from our innate flight or fight response. To survive, we learn to be afraid of and react to certain things that can prove dangerous to us. In the case of phobia, this response has become exaggerated.
There are different types of specific phobias. You may have an animal phobia and be extremely afraid of, say, snakes, spiders, rats or dogs. You may also have a phobia of natural phenomena, such as heights, thunder or water. Another type of phobia concerns specific situations and claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces). You may be terrified of getting in a lift or an airplane. There’s also blood phobia and phobia of choking or vomiting. Blood phobia can cause you to faint when you see blood. Phobias affect women more often than men. Three out of four sufferers have at least two phobias.
The fear caused by a phobia can interfere a great deal with your everyday life. Avoidance can complicate your social and professional lives. For example, if you have a phobia of snakes, this may mean that you’re afraid not only of coming across a snake in real life, but also of seeing one on TV or in a photo. It may be difficult for you to spend time in nature, and in extreme cases you may not even be able to leave home.
Different phobias are dominated by different emotions. An animal phobia of snakes, for example, often causes disgust and avoidance for that reason. Blood phobia concerns the fear of fainting. It can, for example, cause you to avoid going to the dentist and the doctor, thereby missing out on necessary healthcare.
Not all specific phobias need to be treated. It depends how much it limits you. If you or a loved one have experienced such an extreme fear of something specific for a long time and it’s interfering with your life, you should seek help. Treatment can often completely cure phobias. Phobias don’t usually go away by themselves.
Contact your healthcare centre for help. Another alternative is to contact a cognitive behavioural therapist directly. If your phobia prevents you from seeking medical care, such as dental care, it’s a good idea to contact your healthcare provider as they’ll often know where you can get help.
Reviewed by: Robert Sigström, consultant physician and associate professor of psychiatry.
Last edited 2023-12-15