Simple or specific Phobias

People sometimes recoil in horror from a specific object, situation or activity. Fear of heights (acrophobia), cats (ailurophobia), closed places (claustrophobia), and flying (aerophobia) are some examples.

Mild anxiety, panic attacks while facing the source of fear and an overwhelming need to avoid the object or situation, are some of the phobic reactions associated with specific phobias.

Complex phobias

Many complicated factors lead to a complex phobia. Complex phobias always involve several anxieties that can paralyse a person’s day-to-day activities. Agoraphobia is a type of complex phobia that triggers many anxieties in a person that include fear of public spaces, especially crowded places like market places, shops, trains or buses. Such a person suffers from an anxiety disorder that forces the person to escape to a familiar, safe place such as home.

Those with social phobia have a morbid fear of embarrassing themselves or losing face in public and feel extremely vulnerable while appearing at social events. Typical signs of social phobia are reluctance to meet people at social functions, avoiding parties and restaurants and in extreme cases, cannot even muster enough courage to leave their home. Paruresis, known otherwise as ‘bashful bladder syndrome’, is a type of social phobia. People suffering from this phobia cannot bring themselves to use public toilets especially when others are nearby. This type of a reservation can interfere with day-to-day routine and hamper normal activities, such as going to a workplace, attending social events or going on holidays.

Complex phobias can cause emotional trauma and lead to self-replicating cycles - a phobia can make you behave oddly in public and later reinforce your fear of odd behavior in public. Likewise, prolonged agoraphobia can convince you of your inability to control panic attacks thus worsening the phobic condition.