Characteristics of phobias

Panic

- This is a behavioural characteristic. A person with a phobia may do this in response to the presence of the phobic stimulus. This may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming, or running away

Avoidance

- This is a behavioural characteristic. Unless the person is making a conscious effort to face their fear they tend to go to a lot of effort to prevent coming into contact with the phobic stimulus, making it hard to go about daily life and interfering with work, education, and social life

- For example, someone with a fear of birds may reduce the amount of times they go outside as much as they possibly can

Endurance

- This is a behavioural characteristic. This occurs when the person chooses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus. For example a person with a phobia of spiders (arachnophobia) might choose to remain in a room with a spider on the ceiling and keep a wary eye on it rather than leaving

Anxiety

- This is an emotional characteristic. It is an unpleasant state of high arousal. It prevents a person relaxing and makes it difficult to experience any positive emotion. It can also be long-term

Fear

- This is an emotional characteristic. It is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about a phobic stimulus. While it is intense, it is usually experienced for short periods

Emotional response is unreasonable

- The anxiety and fear is much greater than is 'normal' and disproportionate to any threat posed. For example, a person with arachnophobia will have a strong response to a tiny spider. Most people would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisonous spider

Selective attention to the phobic stimulus

- This is a cognitive characteristic. Keeping our awareness on something really dangerous is a good thing as it gives us the best chance of reacting quickly to a threat, but this is not so useful when the fear is irrational

- For example, a person with arachnophobia will struggle to concentrate on what they are doing if there is a spider in the room

Irrational beliefs

- This is a cognitive characteristic. A person with a phobia may hold unfounded thoughts in relation to phobic stimuli, i.e. that can't really be explained and don't have any basis in reality.

- For example, social phobias can involve thoughts like 'I must always sound intelligent'. This kind of thought increases the pressure on the person to perform well in social situations

Cognitive distortions

- This is a cognitive characteristic. The perceptions of a person with a phobia may be inaccurate and unrealistic

- For example, someone with arachnophobia may see spiders as scary and alien