Characteristics of Phobias

Behavioural characteristics:

Panic:

A phobic person might panic as a response to a phobic stimulus(when an arachnaphobic sees a spider).This could be any type of bahaviour such as crying, screaming, or running away.For a child, they might freeze, cling onto someone/something or have a tantrum.

Avoidance:

unless the person is trying to make a conscious effort to face their fear, they tend to go through a lot of effort to avoidcoming into contact with the phobic stimulus.This makes it hard to go about their daily life.

Endurance:

This is the opposite to avoidance.The person remains in the presenceof the phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety,In some situations, this may be unavoidable,for example, flying.

Emotional characteristics:

Anxiety:

Phobias are classed as anxiety disorders.By definiton they involve anemotional response of anxiety and fear. Anxiety is an unpleasant state of high arousal.this prevents the person relaxing and makes it very difficult for them to experience any positive emotion. Anxiety can be long term. Fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus

Example: Arachnaphobia:

Matt has fears of spiders (arachnaphobia). His anxiety levels…