Numerous People Suffer From Phobias Of Many Different Kinds, But We Don’t Really Know Why Some People Have A Problem And Others Don’t. Research Must Surely Continue Until The Human Brain Is Understood In More Detail
It is a little surprising to hear just how many people have some kind of phobia. A phobia is simply having a permanent fear of an object or personal event which the sufferer will try their very best to avoid no matter what. Most of us are acquainted with people who are frightened of spiders or who can’t handle heights. Everybody, including the sufferer, realises that the fear is really quite absurd but that doesn’t prevent the phobia from probably causing big problems for the individual concerned.
As far as I am aware, and I understand that science says the same, almost all phobias can be traced to a specific incident in which the individual had a nasty experience, and any perceived repetition of something along the same lines triggers the brain to behave in in the same fashion as it did on the first occasion.
Phobias actually fit into two defined categories. These are known as specific phobias and social phobias. Specific phobias are the type where a particular object causes the problem, as with spiders (as referred to earlier), cats, water, heights and so on. Social phobias are focused on situations in which the sufferer feels uncomfortable – speaking in public or eating in front of others, for example.
Looking at specific phobias, it is very easy to see how toppling unexpectedly into a swimming pool as a child may cause someone to build up a fear of water, or having a painful fall as a youngster could make someone afraid of heights, being attacked by a dog could prompt a fear of all dogs and harming an eye would naturally make you uncomfortable about having your eyes assessed at the optician, as it would of course if you needed Laser eye surgery or another operation too. What is more tricky to understand is why some people react to the incident by developing a phobia, whilst other individuals will just forget what happened to them and it will have no influence on their lives.
There are treatments which can help to ease the problem, but because we still don’t truly understand why something becomes a phobia, those treatments will differ from one sufferer to another. As we are all aware, problems relating to the mind are far more complex and difficult to treat than bodily health complaints. Fevers can be beaten by medication, broken limbs can be reset, damaged hearts can be operated on and failing eyesight can be corrected with lenses or Laser eye surgery, but a complaint within the human brain is firstly more complex to diagnose and secondly, more complicated to treat.
The impact of specific phobias can often be reduced by exposing the sufferer to the cause of the issue under controlled circumstances. This may be by using a virtual reality situation, or making use of pictures and live footage or confronting the phobia in a real situation. Each option will help some people and probably not for others. There’s no immediate fix and no one particular treatment for phobia problems. Even with the incredible progress in medicine and surgery, the one part of the body that we really don’t totally understand is the human brain.
However, scientists are always carrying out research to understand more and I wouldn’t mind betting that one day a little problem like a fear of wasps will be removed simply by bombarding one brain cell with the beam from a Laser eye so as to correct its behaviour, but that won’t be in my lifetime. Also, I’m not sure that anyone should be firing Laser eye beams at any area of the brain until they know for certain what other impact there could be in another area of such a delicate organ, so let’s just say that this won’t be happening any time soon!
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