Caution: this article may be too scary for verbophobics
From the fear of closed spaces to the fear of needles, there’s a phobia for all occasions
By Carolyn Grindrod
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Editor-in-Chief
Phobias-everyone has them; no one really likes to talk about them, but what really causes phobias?
According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), phobias affect over 14.8 million Americans; that is about 10.3 percent of the population today. The survey also showed that women are twice as likely to develop a phobia than men.
There are several factors, both physically and emotionally, which play a role in why humans create phobias for themselves. “Most of the time, a severe fear of a specific thing has to do with the environmental surroundings of a person,” said Donna Mantooth, associate professor of psychology. “Traumatic events, for example, maybe can affect a person. A person who gets bit by a dog when he or she was younger may develop a fear of dogs.”
There are all kinds of phobias, including those more common and those that are more bizarre.
Some of the most common phobias include claustrophobia- fear of being confined in small spaces, acrophobia- fear of heights, enetophoba- fear of needles and arachnophobia- fear of spiders.
Doug Anderson, psychics major from Calhoun, said, “If I can impact something that I’m scared of, it won’t scare me anymore, but if I have no control over the situation then that’s when I get scared.”
The more out of the ordinary fears can be anything from chrematophobia- the fear of money to heliophobia- the fear of the sun or pteronophobia- the fear of being tickled by feathers.
“I have a huge fear of ropes,” said William Torres, a human services major from Calhoun, Ga. “One time, while I was in the military, I was training on an obstacle course, and I started to fall. I grabbed a rope, and ended up with a severe case of rope burn. Later, when I was forced to another obstacle course, fear paralyzed me and I started crying.”
Although phobias are life altering, there is treatment for them. According to Mantooth, “First of all, you have to address the fear itself. A lot of therapists use desensitization training, where a person is gradually introduced to the event or stimuli.”
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