Phobias

A phobia is an excessive fear of a situation, for example driving, flying, seeing blood, or an object, for example animals such as rats, snakes, spiders, dogs. There are four main types of phobias: animal type(e.g.; spiders, dogs), natural environment type(e. g., storms, water), blood-injection-injury type(e. g., seeing blood, getting a needle) and situational type(e. g., enclosed places, flying, driving).
Medical and animal phobias typically begin in early childhood whereas situational and natural environment phobias begin later. Phobias have a strong effect on a person's life. Phobias cause a lot of distress and make it very difficult to function normally in social situations and at work. For example, a person with a fear of heights may not take a job in an office on a high floor of an office tower.
Many phobias are caused by experience of a traumatic event in the phobic situation(for example, a person has an accident and becomes fearful of driving) but there are number of individuals, who do not remember a specific time or event that caused their fear.
Simple and specific phobias can be treated using behavioral and cognitive theraphy procedures. In behavioral theraphy one meets with a trained therapist and confronts the feared object or situation in a carefully planned way and learns to control the physical reactions of fear.

To types of phobias

Coulrophobia is a fear of clowns. Like all fears and phobias, clown's fear is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism. Some people believe that most people are afraid of clowns because it is impossible to recognize a clown's true emotions. Thanks to painted-on smiles, people can not distinguish if the clown is a happy as he seems. Although there are no official statistic, some experts believe that asmany as one in seven people experience some level of fear clowns. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausia and overall feelings of dread. Caulrophobia is most commonly caused by a traumatic experience in childhood. One famous person, who also has a fear of clowns, is JohnnyDepp.

Cynophobia is a fear of animals. Fear of domestic animals such as cats and dogs is the most common. Most others we can avoid by not going zoos, animals parks or circuses. Fear of domestic animals make life quite uncomfortable when friends, relatives and neighbours have pets of which you are phobic. And most pets act more responsibly towards you when you do not have a fear of them - because they can smell your phobia. But sometimes phobias like this can be very useful for your security.