Phobias

Having to do a presentation or talk at a meeting might make some people a bit nervous. If you have a social phobia, it might make you so nervous that you get anxious for weeks before the event, and you may even start to feel sick if you even think about it.

A phobia is a persistent irrational fear of an object or a situation that's generally considered harmless. Accompanying the fear is a strong desire to avoid what you fear and, in some cases, an inability to function at normal tasks in your job and in social settings.

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Common phobias include :

• Specific phobias. These include a fear of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia); animals, particularly spiders, snakes or mice; heights (acrophobia); flying (pteromerhanophobia); water (hydrophobia); storms; dentists; injections; There are many other specific phobias.
  
  
• Social phobia. More than just shyness, social phobia involves a combination of excessive self-consciousness, a fear of public scrutiny or humiliation in common social situations, and a fear of negative evaluation by others.
  
  
• Fear of open spaces (agoraphobia). Most people who have agoraphobia developed it after having one or more panic attacks. Agoraphobia is a fear of being on your own in a place, such as a mall or an elevator or a room full of people, with no easy means of escape if a panic attack should occur.

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Is this how you feel?

• A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation.
  
  
• When facing the object of your phobia, an experience of panicky feelings, such as sweating, rapid heartbeat, avoidance behaviour, difficulty breathing and intense anxiety.
  
  
• In some cases, anxious feelings when merely anticipating an encounter with what you fear.
  
  
• An feeling of uncontrollable anxiety when you think of or are confronted by the situation or object you fear.
  
  
• A compelling need to avoid what you fear and even taking unusual measures to stay away from what you fear.
  
  
• An impaired ability to function at normal tasks because of the fear.
  
  
• Often, the knowledge that these fears are out of proportion with the object of your fear.

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