1. Phobias
Phobias are…
Intense, irrational fear responses to specific stimuli
A fear turns into a phobia when it provokes a compelling, irrational desire to avoid a dreaded situation or object, disrupting the person’s daily life

2. Kinds of Phobias There are three types of phobias:
Specific phobias—fear of a specific object (such as snakes).
Social phobias—fear of social situations.
Agoraphobia —fear of being trapped in an inescapable place or situation.

3. Specific Phobia
A specific phobia is more than just a strong fear or dislike. A specific phobia is diagnosed when there is an uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid the some object or situation. Even an image of the object can trigger a reaction--“GET IT AWAY FROM ME!!!”--the uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid the object of the phobia.
Automatic animation.
“Irrational” means the fear and the avoidance compulsion are out of proportion to the actual threat (e.g. triggered by even a photograph) and the phobia occurs even when the person knows that the fear doesn’t make sense.
Some phobias may make evolutionary sense. More on this later, but in case you decide to delete the biological perspective slide, there are some fears more likely to form phobias. These seem to be part of our biological heritage to avoid (for example, clowns may trigger a fear of baboons and mandrills bred into our ancestors). People reasonably fear handguns, but are not likely to panic and run away from a mere photograph of a gun unless they had a personal traumatic experience with one. However, people fear heights, snakes and spiders with no previous bad experience with these, because those that didn’t fear these 100,000 years ago might have not lived to reproduce.
I suggest asking students, before viewing the next slide with its list of phobias and fears, about their own fears. You might ask, “is anyone getting an irrational fear reaction triggered by this slide?” and “do any of you have a fear that meets the criteria to be called a phobia?”
This diagnosis is known in the DSM as “specific phobia,” although agoraphobia is in a separate category because it is so closely and frequently associated with panic disorder. Social phobia is also a separate diagnosis.

5. Social Phobia or Social Anxiety Disorder
characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations.
People with social phobia have a persistent, intense, and chronic fear of being watched and judged by others and of being embarrassed or humiliated by their own actions.
Their fear may be so severe that it interferes with work, school, or other activities.
While many people with social phobia recognize that their fear of being around people may be excessive or unreasonable, they are unable to overcome it.
They often worry for days or weeks in advance of a dreaded situation.

6. Social Phobia or Social Anxiety Disorder
Common anxiety provoking social situations include:
public speaking
talking with people in authority
dating and developing close relationships
making a phone call or answering the phone
interviewing
attending and participating in class
speaking with strangers
meeting new people
eating, drinking, or writing in public
using public bathrooms
driving
shopping

7. Social Phobia Video

8. Agoraphobia
A person with this may find it hard to feel safe in any type of public place, especially where large numbers of people gather.
Some people may have it so severely that the only place they feel really safe in is their home, and rarely ever go outside.
About one third of all people with panic disorder develop agoraphobia.
As they are always on guard for the next panic attack, their world may become smaller.

9. Almost 6.2 million US citizens have some sort of specific phobia.
All three types of phobia - social, agoraphobia and specific- are likely to affect between 5 and 10 people in every 100.
Social phobia begins in childhood or adolescence, typically around 13 years of age.5
Social anxiety disorder is one of the most common anxiety disorder, affecting between 7 and 13% of the population. This is approximately 2.5 – 4.5 million people in Canada.
Approximately 19.2 million American adults age 18 and over, or about 8.7 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have some type of specific phobia.1, 2
Specific phobia typically begins in childhood; the median age of onset is seven years.5
Approximately 1.8 million American adults age 18 and over, or about 0.8 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have agoraphobia without a history of panic disorder.1, 2
The median age of onset of agoraphobia is 20 years of age.5
Males & females are equally likely to have a phobia
Males are more likely to get treatment
It is possible to have multiple phobias

10. What causes Phobias?
Phobias do not have a single cause, but there are a number of associated factors. For example:
a phobia may be associated with a particular incident or trauma
a phobia may be a learned response that a person develops early in life from a parent or sibling (brother or sister)
genetics may play a role – there's evidence to suggest some people are born with a tendency to be more anxious than others

11. What causes Phobias?
Some people are more vulnerable to experience anxiety than others
Some people are more easily frightened by fear provoking stimuli i.e. movies, heights, bugs etc
The autonomic nervous system controls our emotional responses and so it seems that some people have higher autonomic reactivity which makes them more likely to develop a phobia.

12. Classical Conditioning…
In the experiment by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920, Little Albert learned to feel fear around a rabbit because he had been conditioned to associate the bunny with a loud scary noise.
Sometimes, such a conditioned response becomes overgeneralized. We may begin to fear all animals, everything fluffy, and any location where we had seen those, or even fear that those items could appear soon along with the noise.
The result is a phobia or generalized anxiety.
Click to show bullets under each heading.
If you want to remind students of operant conditioning ideas, you can point out that the anxious, avoidant behavior was negatively reinforced (rewarded by the removal of aversive feelings).
See if students can connect the second bullet point to OCD. “Compelled” = compulsion; see if they can see pattern of reinforcement (once again, negative).
One more example to insert before the last bullet, though this type of example is not in the text. You can ask, “what happens if we reassure a friend who is worrying?” If we verbalize a worry and a friend reassures us, worrying just got positively reinforced.

13. Observational learning
Experiments with humans and monkeys show that anxiety can be acquired through observational learning.
If you see someone else avoiding or fearing some object or creature, you might pick up that fear and adopt it even after the original scared person is not around.
In this way, fears get passed down in families.
Click to reveal bullets.
Could this method of developing anxiety help explain the acquisition of prejudices? Subtle behaviors like avoiding certain types of people on a dark street might be acquired through watching the behavior of parents and friends even when we espouse believing in equal treatment and worth of all groups.

14. Where is the cognitive part of the brain?
Which part of the brain stores emotions and memories?
How did the brain change after the treatment?
Treating Phobias

15. Treating Phobias
Exposure therapy is the most effective way to overcome a phobia is by gradually and repeatedly exposing yourself to what you fear in a safe and controlled way.
This is the same as “conditioning” (Pavlov’s dogs – not related to the chart to the right)
Just as Little Albert learned to fear white, fluffy things, we can be taught NOT to fear things
Other ways include relaxation techniques, medications, and realistic thinking
This is finding out the truths behind what might be causing your fear