Critical Analysis Of Phobia

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A critical analysis of selected perspectives on the etiologies, process and effects of Phobias.

We all experience anxiety at some point in our life, a threat can cause us to be scared and prepare ourselves for the ‘flight or fight’ biological response. However a phobia differs from fear when it starts to intervene with our day today life and hinders our ability to function normally. A Phobia is “a persistent fear of circumscribed stimulus (object or situation)” and the common examples include fear of animals, heights and enclosed places. (DSM-III R: 243). Phobias are classified as ‘Anxiety disorders’ in DSM –IV and are considered a common type of all anxiety disorders. Everyone has aversions to selected objects or situations, which result in making us feel unusually uncomfortable, anxious, or fearful- when encountered with them. But when this aversion becomes irrationally intense and unreasonable it is termed as a Phobia. (Prentice 1996 cited in Cardwell, Clark, Meldrum 2004: 629). The causes of phobias have been explained in a number of ways according to various models of psychopathology. (Merckelbach, De Jong, Muris & Van den Hout 1996). Eventhough the prevalence of fear has been accepted the nature of phobias remains controversial to date.

Behavioural approach to Phobias

The primary thought behind the behavioural approach is that irrational fears are learnt. However which exact learning mechanism is adopted and what is learnt are questionable as the behavioural

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