characteristics

• a fear only becomes a phobia when it negatively impacts a person everyday life
• a phobia is an irrational fear that produces a conscious avoidance of the feared object or situation
• what symptoms should people have for 6 months to have a phobia?


  persistant fear for object or situation, exposure to object causes irrational behaviours
• what are the behavioural charaterisitcs?


  fear, avoidance, endurance
• what are the emotional characteristics?

  anxiety, excessive and unreasonable responses, triggered by presence of object or situation
• what are the cognitive characteristic?


  attention selective, distorted thinking, irrational beliefs