Treatment for anxiety caused by phobias
In very basic terms, a phobia can be defined as an extreme fear of something which in actuality might cause little or no danger. While some phobias, such as the fear of being closed in i.e. claustrophobia, are quite common, other phobias are quite rare and at times may seem ridiculous to the average Joe who doesn’t suffer from them.
Phobias can easily lead to anxiety even though the person suffering from the phobia might realize that his fear is unreasonable. To get your head round this statement, consider the case of Mr. X who suffers from aerophobia or the fear of flying. Each time Mr. X needs to travel by air, he goes through a heavily-taxing ordeal which starts weeks before the actual flight departure. The moment Mr. X learns that he will need to fly for work purposes, his anxiety increases with each passing day till the day he actually needs to fly. On this day he wakes up with his anxiety at its peak. The entire drive to the airport, Mr. X can swear that he’s going to vomit any second, but never actually does (to the relief of the taxi driver). Although things couldn’t possibly worsen for him, his anxiety levels somehow skyrocket even further once Mr. X takes his seat in the plane. His heart pounds, he feels lightheaded, and drops of cold sweat slowly make their way down his forehead.
The result being that Mr. X promises himself upon landing that he’ll never put himself through this ordeal again by adopting a policy of never flying for the remaining years of his life. This, though, is exactly what an anxiety disorder does – it makes one stop living a normal life. Why alter your life for the worse when you can make things better for yourself by taking on treatment which will show you how to cope with your phobias.
Such treatment for phobias usually makes use of a type of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) called Systematic Desensitization or Exposure Therapy. This form of treatment has proved to be very successful, so much so that studies have reported that 75 percent of patients are able to overcome their phobias by undergoing Exposure Therapy.
As the name suggests, Exposure Therapy aims to treat patients by slowly increasing their exposure to the thing they fear so that they can see that there is no real reason to be afraid. Usually, people suffering from phobias are gradually exposed to the object or situation they fear in a highly controlled and safe environment. Through repeated experiences with their fear, patients begin to objectively realize that the situation or object causing fear is barely unpleasant and will cause no harm. With each passing exposure, the patient attains greater and greater control over his phobia.
