PHOBIAS AFFORDABLE COUNSELING CENTER TAMPA, FL & BRANDON, FL
- Sam DiFranco
- Oct 3, 2022
- 2 min read
A phobia can be described as an intense fear—which may be considered irrational—of a particular place, situation, animal, or object. This will typically be avoided by the person experiencing the phobia, and when it must be endured, it generally provokes significant fear and/or anxiety.
Phobias can be treated successfully through many therapeutic approaches.
FEAR VS. PHOBIAS
Most people have a particular fear, several particular fears, or experience fear in certain situations that are generally considered to be dangerous. A phobia, however, goes beyond ordinary fear and may often feature an object or situation that is not typically threatening, such as a ringing telephone.
Fear, the emotion often experienced when safety or well-being is threatened, is generally considered to be a rational response to something that is threatening. A person with a phobia may recognize that the thing or situation feared carries little or no threat and is unlikely to cause harm but still be unable to overcome the fear without help. For example, most people will experience fear when encountering a dog that is growling, barking, or foaming at the mouth. But a person who is afraid to approach any dog—even one leashed, behind a fence, or sleeping—and experiences fear at the sound of dogs barking in the distance likely has a phobia of dogs.
PHOBIAS IN CHILDREN
Phobias typically first appear in childhood, and most cases of specific phobias develop by age 10. However, because excessive fear—which may involve a variety of objects, situations, places, or people—is common in childhood, a mental health professional at Affordable Counseling Center in Tampa, FL & Brandon, FL will generally take into account the severity of the fear, the degree to which it affects the child’s life, and whether or not the fear is appropriate to the child’s developmental stage. Often, childhood fears may be experienced intensely but fade rapidly or have little to no harmful impact on the child’s daily activity.
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