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HANG-UPS,
FEARS, AND PHOBIAS
Common
Problems
The usual apprehensions that may
exist in relative degrees of severity include flying, high places,
rejection, failure (or even success), pain, exposure, poor performance
(sports, scholastic, job, theatrical, sexual), death, the unknown,
contamination, blood, animals (including spiders, sharks, etc.), water,
impending danger, darkness, open spaces, closed spaces, loss of control,
and many others.
Fears are not necessarily
bad. they can be highly valuable if they serve useful purposes,
such as creating caution in driving, locking doors, being prepared for
emergencies. But when a fear causes alteration of a normal
lifestyle, creating intense and irrational behaviors, becoming a threat
to a person's well-being, it merits attention. Frequent occurrence
is a strong warning signal that needs to be heeded.
A "hang-up" becomes a
fear when it becomes noticeably disturbing and begins to affect
behavior. A fear becomes a phobia by factors which are irrational
and may be unknown, and when it is experienced so frequently that it
affects an individual's normal activities. Lack of understanding
of the repressed conflict which causes the reaction may result in
uncontrollable or unreasonable behavior.
Hypnotherapists specializing in
such disorders have claimed that the fear itself may not cause the
phobic reaction. It may well be caused by what the fear represents
as an unknown danger.
Fears originating in adulthood
may sometimes be caused by chemical problems (hypoglycemic reaction) or
by physiological reactions (indigestion assumed to be a heart
attack). The duration of the reaction under the triggering
circumstances may indicate whether the cause is physiological or
psychological. A psychological reaction, since it anticipates the
triggering episode, tends to diminish once a situation is actually
encountered. Physiological reactions, caused by the event or
activity itself, tend to increase once the triggering situation begins.
A key point is that a phobic
person is threatened by something that does not in reality present a
life threat. Yet the reaction is the same as it would be in a situation
of real danger. The fear generates more fear, and the situation
cannot be confronted in a calm state, so the victim makes every effort
to avoid it.
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