Phobias

1
Phobias Fears

• By Lindsay, Austin, Kayla Drew

2
What is a phobia

• A phobia is defined as a mental or emotional
  disorder due to events that have occurred in a
  persons life that may have caused extreme
  sadness, depression, trauma, or excitement.
• These unfortunate situations become stored in a
  persons memories and cause them to relive past
  experiences when reminded of them.

3
Cont

• Your memory is connected with nerves in your
  brain, therefore if you have a bad memory of
  something, many people correlate the bad memory
  with certain objects or people.
• This connection between the objects and the bad
  memories can cause tremors, night sweats, nausea
  breathlessness and paranoia.
• Most phobias begin as a child because of
  occurrences that were perceived as traumatic to
  the child.

4
Causes of a Phobia

• A phobia is brought on by a specific situation or
  stimulus in the brain.
• The cause of fear and phobias is thought to be in
  the amygdala.
• A person with a phobia has an altered fear
  response to the point where they dont process
  dangerous situations correctly. Instead they over
  react to them.
• The brain senses conditions of fear and the pre
  frontal cortex evaluates the situation and
  decides whether it seems like the situation is
  dangerous or safe. It then sends an all clear
  message to the brains fear center.
• Phobias have been linked to anxiety disorders and
  post traumatic stress disorders in their
  reactions and severity.

5
(No Transcript)
6
Causes of fears

• Areas of the brain such as the amygdala and the
  hypothalamus are activated when fear is sensed
  and cause the release of hormones such as
  adrenaline and cortisol.
• Fear, unlike a phobia is adaptive and you can
  overcome it.
• Fear is a neural circuit that keeps the body
  going in dangerous situations. The stimuli is
  transferred along neural pathways to the amygdala
  and is evaluated based on outside influences.

7
Common Phobias

• Some phobias are very common and are not severe
  in their reactions such as
• Arachnophobia Fear of spiders
• Claustrophobia Fear of enclosed places
• Acrophobia Fear of heights
• Necrophobia Fear of death or dead things
• Belonephobia Fear of needles

8
List of phobias

• Pteronophobia Fear of being tickled by feathers
• Anuptaphobia Fear of staying single
• Bibliophobia Fear of books
• Cibophobia Fear of food
• Didaskaleinophobia Fear of school
• Ephebiphobia Fear of teenagers
• Francophobia Fear of France or french things
• Gymnophobia Fear of nudity
• Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia Fear of the number
  666
• Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia Fear of long
  words
• Kathisophobia Fear of sitting down
• Methyphobia Fear of alcohol
• Mycophobia Fear of mushrooms
• Parthenophobia Fear of young girls
• Porphyrophobia Fear of the color purple
• Sexophobia Fear of the opposite sex
• Walloonphobia Fear of walloons
• Zeusophobia Fear of God

9
Bibliography

• http//www.listofphobias.org/what-causes-phobias.h
  tm
• http//www.anxietytreatment.ca/specificp.htm
• http//serendip.brymawr.edu/exchange/node/1749
• http//www.nativeremedies.com/ailment/overcoming-f
  ears-info.html
• http//psychcentral.com/news/2008/10/07/phobias-as
  sociated-with-altered-brain-response/3080.html
• http//abcnews.go.com/technology/story?id97841pa
  ge1