does anyone know anything about phobias?
Monday, January 25th, 2010 at
7:50 pm
ilove*****.x3 asked:
i have to do a phobia project and i just cant kind the answer.
i have to do a phobia project and i just cant kind the answer.
here are my questions:
how do phobias begin?
can they be cured and how can they be cured?
where in your brain do phobias occur?
please give me accurate answers or if you cant give me a website that will answer them.
thanks.
Tagged with: Accurate Answers • Phobia Project • Phobias
Filed under: Phobias
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well, all i know is that phobias begin from an experience in your past.
example: a spider bit me when i was 5, since then I have been afraid of them. I’ve also had near death experiences from drowning and I have a fear of large bodies of water. and my social phobia comes from rejection and embarrassment.
acupuncture therapy is known to cure people of some phobias. i’ve done a form of it (emotional freedom technique) with spiders and i’m a little bit better around them.
i hope you get some answers to this……..when i was younger i had a phobia for dogs…….actually for practically all animals. Nothing caused it, I guess I was just born with it. But the weird thing was……I absolutely LOVED dogs!! They were my all time favourite animal!!! Whenever I saw a dog my mind would be DYING to go and pat it, but my legs had another idea and run in the other direction. It was horrible. Eventually my mates helped me and together we got me patting some dogs, and eventually i convinced my parents to let us get a puppy!!! I was so scared to pat him but loved him o much I got over it. I guess I managed to get over it because I loved dogs so much, I wasn’t going to let my legs get in the way of me having a puppy =D
i do know that sometimes when you get over a phobia, it can be “replaced” by another. I think this happened to me (which I’m not surprised, considering my phobia was so bad)
I used to not be scared at all of spiders, I didn’t understand why so many people were, I thought they were cute lol
Since I got over my fear of dogs, however, I’ve been terrified of them =\
Also I was born with a fear of swimming……..when my brother took swimming lessons I was so exited to join in…….so my parents got me lessons, I got in the water, and suddenly discovered I was terrified. It took a LONG LONG time, but I got over it. I still don’t like swimming in deep water, and don’t like diving/going under water. I feel like I can’t hold my breath for that long.
Wow, I have alot of phobias. I’m also afraid of heights, I LOVE them but when I’m up high i get dizzy and can’t balance.
Phobias can also happen from a bad experience. A couple of years ago, there was a huge storm, thunder, lightening, etc. I had to put my horses rug on, and my brother’s like “don’t worry, the storms miles away”
i went out there, the thunder was so loud and the horses were running around going crazy. I started to panic, and then-CRACK
this MASSIVE bolt of lightening went straight down like right above my head
i thought i was going to be killed
it was massive, and the ***** (not of the thunder, but the actual lightening sound as it came down) was SO SO loud
it looked like this…….
literally it was that big, and right above my head
i bolted, it was the fast i think I’ve ever run
i didn’t stop till i was inside.
my heart was beating the fasted ever
i knew instantly from then on i was going to be terrified of lightening
i don’t even go outside if it even looks SLIGHTLY stormy now, even if there’s not thunder of lightening.
I’m just too scared, it brings so many memeries back
A starting point, with info & multiple weblinks is section 27, on phobia, at
There are many theories as to how phobias arise. I don’t have my extensive notes in front of me, but I can tell you that some people think they are conditioned (something bad happens to you in the presence of some stimulus, and you then associate the fear and bad feelings with the unrelated stimulus rather than the actual stressor), some people think they are a brain malfunction (the brain is not interpreting the information about the feared object normally), some feel that it’s an evolutionary thing (we can be afraid of snakes because they were harmful to our ancestors, and we innately want to avoid them.) There are many more theories, and nobody really knows which are correct.
Read this article about where fear takes place in the brain. The two main “players” in fear conditioning are the amygdala and the hippocampus. You can learn more from that website.
Phobias can be treated and “cured.” Some therapists use immersion therapy, using strong exposure to the feared object to flood the senses and try to get rid of the fear. Some work through the reasoning behind the fear.