Transcript Phobias & Fears

Phobias & Fears
By: Lindsay, Austin, Kayla & Drew
What is a phobia…
• A phobia is defined as a mental or
emotional disorder due to events that
have occurred in a persons life that may
have caused extreme sadness,
depression, trauma, or excitement.
• These unfortunate situations become
stored in a persons memories and cause
them to relive past experiences when
reminded of them.
Cont…
• Your memory is connected with nerves in your brain,
therefore if you have a bad memory of something,
many people correlate the bad memory with certain
objects or people.
• This connection between the objects and the bad
memories can cause tremors, night sweats, nausea
breathlessness and paranoia.
• Most phobias begin as a child because of occurrences
that were perceived as traumatic to the child.
Causes of a Phobia…
• A phobia is brought on by a specific situation or
stimulus in the brain.
• The cause of fear and phobias is thought to be in the
amygdala.
• A person with a phobia has an altered fear response
to the point where they don’t process dangerous
situations correctly. Instead they over react to them.
• The brain senses conditions of fear and the pre
frontal cortex evaluates the situation and decides
whether it seems like the situation is dangerous or
safe. It then sends an “all clear” message to the
brains fear center.
• Phobias have been linked to anxiety disorders and
post traumatic stress disorders in their reactions and
severity.
Causes of fears
• Areas of the brain such as the amygdala and the
hypothalamus are activated when fear is sensed
and cause the release of hormones such as
adrenaline and cortisol.
• Fear, unlike a phobia is adaptive and you can
overcome it.
• Fear is a neural circuit that keeps the body going
in dangerous situations. The stimuli is
transferred along neural pathways to the
amygdala and is evaluated based on outside
influences.
Common Phobias…
• Some phobias are very common and are
not severe in their reactions such as:
–
–
–
–
–
Arachnophobia: Fear of spiders
Claustrophobia: Fear of enclosed places
Acrophobia: Fear of heights
Necrophobia: Fear of death or dead things
Belonephobia: Fear of needles
List of phobias…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pteronophobia: Fear of being tickled by feathers
Anuptaphobia: Fear of staying single
Bibliophobia: Fear of books
Cibophobia: Fear of food
Didaskaleinophobia: Fear of school
Ephebiphobia: Fear of teenagers
Francophobia: Fear of France or french things
Gymnophobia: Fear of nudity
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: Fear of the number 666
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: Fear of long words
Kathisophobia: Fear of sitting down
Methyphobia: Fear of alcohol
Mycophobia: Fear of mushrooms
Parthenophobia: Fear of young girls
Porphyrophobia: Fear of the color purple
Sexophobia: Fear of the opposite sex
Walloonphobia: Fear of walloons
Zeusophobia: Fear of God
Bibliography
•
•
•
•
http://www.listofphobias.org/what-causes-phobias.htm
http://www.anxietytreatment.ca/specificp.htm
http://serendip.brymawr.edu/exchange/node/1749
http://www.nativeremedies.com/ailment/overcomingfears-info.html
• http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/10/07/phobiasassociated-with-altered-brain-response/3080.html
• http://abcnews.go.com/technology/story?id=97841&page
=1