Phobias

• Phobia - an anxiety disorder interfering with daily living. An irrational fear producing avoidance of the feared object or situation.
• Exposure to a phobic stimulus nearly always produces an anxiety response
• Emotional responses to phobia:

  anxiety

  unreasonable
• Behavioural responses to phobia:

  panic

  avoidance

  endurance
• Cognitive responses to phobia:

  selective attention

  irrational believes

  cognitive distortions
• Three categories of phobia:

  specific phobias

  social phobias

  agoraphobia
• specific phobias - sufferers are anxious in the presence of a particular stimulus.
• social phobias - sufferers experience inappropriate anxiety in social situations
• agoraphobia - sufferers are anxious in a situation that they cannot easy leave