Phobias and post-traumatic stress: how to face and understand the discomfort

What are phobias? These make up a type of anxiety disorder, which manifests itself as an intense and extreme fear of a situation, animal or feeling.

In general, this fear is of an irrational nature , but its intensity is such that it leads people to avoid facing and interacting with the environment in a safe way as much as possible.

classifying phobias

There are many types of phobias; however, science has grouped them into two categories to understand their nature.

Simple or specific phobias

They develop in childhood or adolescence. Its origin lies most of the time because the individual faces an extreme situation , understanding its psychic scope, leading him to live a very uncomfortable situation and triggering avoidant psychic defense mechanisms that lead the individual to assume resistance and radical blockage against the stimulus. initial and trigger of Fear, Anxiety or Distress.

Among the examples of simple phobias we find phobias towards animals, environmental phobias that refer to all those stimuli that are in the environment such as heights, water, depth, darkness, medical environments, among others. Body phobias are related to that intense, irrational and paralyzing fear of blood, body fluids, injections. There is a group of sexual phobias, which show high indicators of anxiety specifically regarding sexual performance.

Finally, we find situational phobias such as flying, speaking in public, visiting some hospital-like environments and other places that can be very specific.

complex phobias

Complex phobias tend to develop in adulthood, causing the same paralyzing effects associated with extreme anxiety contained in the body. Complex phobias generally tend to have a much more debilitating effect on the person who suffers from it, generating a significant impact on their quality of life, since it permanently removes the person from some environments, profoundly impacting health individual's mind.

The most common are social phobia (fear of social exposure to a greater or lesser extent), agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), and claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces).

How do I know if I suffer from a phobia?

Those who suffer from a phobia generally tend to manifest symptoms associated with anxiety such as palpitations, sweating, dizziness, intense dizziness, exhausted breathing, debilitating muscle tremor, abdominal pain; among other bodily symptoms and psychological symptoms such as blockages. Some people only express the symptoms if they are face to face with the stimulus that guarantees their phobia, while other people just by thinking about that stimulus tend to trigger all the symptoms that underlie anxiety.

The causes of phobias can be very different, they may even be completely unrelated. Clinical cases have been studied that show that at the genetic level there is a predisposition that would facilitate the development of the disease. The environment plays a very important role, since we know that children learn by modeling.

Therefore, there are phobias learned in a social way, usually children exposed to punishing parents and with a tendency to extreme fear, develop either a type of personality very similar to that of their parents, or in contrast to this it is revealed and turns into the extreme opposite. It should be noted that they are also explained in isolation from genetics and upbringing and are related to the environment. Extreme situations that cause trauma can trigger post-traumatic stress and followed by a phobia.

post traumatic stress

Post-traumatic stress is understood as a triggering consequence that is directly related to a specific situation or trauma experienced by a person or a group of people . The deterioration of mental health is related to the psychic manifestation of each individual and the way in which he manages the perception of trauma in his life experience and in his reality, leading him or not to make adjustments to reach a serene understanding that facilitates healing. trauma management. Post-traumatic stress is associated with people of all ages, but it especially occurs in women.

It manifests itself with the following symptoms:

• Re-experiencing the traumatic event
• Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli
• mind numbing
• hyperarousal state

All of us have experienced fear, since this phenomenon is associated with the subjective perception that the subject has in his own environment; however, in extreme situations where life and integrity are at risk, a far-reaching impact is generated on a psychic level. People with post-traumatic stress disorder often experience the same symptoms associated with the triggering situation over and over again.

The experience becomes a cycle where the event and the emotions associated with the event occur again and again and hardly cease if the person does not seek clinical help that makes it easier to manage the psychic universe, from the structure of the unconscious and the consciousness that inhabits him to process the trauma.

Acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder are two different clinical diagnoses , the latter being characterized by a greater precipitation and duration of symptoms surrounding the trauma.

How to treat it

In general, these types of problems require professional help, from a clinical point of view, by a specialist who accompanies them in the management of symptoms, identifying the stimuli that trigger the psychic discomfort and preparing the individual to resignify the perception that has of the event or events or traumatic.

The symptoms associated with anxiety are usually accompanied by an educational and close therapeutic model, where the perception of the trauma is modified and relaxation techniques, conscious breathing, cognitive restructuring are used... Or even more complex processes such as hypnosis , which have been shown to have a very positive impact on the lives of people who suffer from this type of diagnosis.

It is very important to understand that the brain has a neuroplasticity mechanism, which facilitates learning and relearning processes. Unconscious processes, being timeless, allow new perceptions to be entered around the same situation; For this reason, an accompaniment aimed at repeating the traumatic event is recommended , which allows shaping the perception around a situation.