What Causes Phobias?

Fear is one thing that has been existent since the beginning of time. It is said that it is a channel which keeps a person from immediately jumping on to something difficult or dangerous as it may harm him or her. On the other hand, fear is connoted by others as something that is a major burden - what keeps a person from trying out and exploring beautiful things in nature, even from vast possibilities and opportunities, preventing him or her to gain success that already lies ahead of him or her. In contrast, some other people say that fear is a driving force. It is a positive thing because it is the ultimate test of a certain person's capacity to live and survive in this dangerous world.

Actually, whether fear is a burden, a challenge, or a warning, it is universally acknowledged that it is objectively a negative and subjectively a heavy feeling, something either to be fought and faced head on or turned away from. To some people fear is a consequence - a result of hurtful or dark situations that already happened and experienced before, such as calamities, crimes, mystery, and even embarrassment - something that happened and that a person would never, as in never, want to encounter again. As a result, excessive fear promotes withdrawal. All these believed to having been contributing to what causes phobias.

What causes phobias? A direct factor involved is the chronic accumulation or abrupt impact of traumatic experiences from certain objects, also referred to as the feared object. This is what causes phobias. However, fear is a normal response to whatever it is that inflicted pain on the person (physically or emotionally). It's just that as time passes by, fear must be gradually neutralized. 

Continuous and worsening fear implies ineffective coping of the person. He or she now builds a bizarre thought which is already make-believe. These become wild, irrational thoughts and they actually persist therefore contribute more fear. The basic cure would be gradual exposure to the feared object and repeated explanation regarding its reality. It is indeed really helpful knowing what causes phobias.

PanicBuster.com was created by anxiety treatment expert David Mellinger, MSW (RESUME). Click on the link to learn more about anxiety, worry, phobias, and obsessions and compulsions (OCD).