Phobias of Our Time

Research shows that one in five people experienced the anxiety disorder symptoms at some point in their lives.

According to the WHO, anxiety disorders affect millions of people worldwide.

Anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks are the contemporary problems people face. Experts in various fields — philosophers, doctors, psychologists, and sociologists — are trying to help solve this problem and define the boundary between normal and abnormal reactions to fear.

Everyone has experienced fear and anxiety at some point in their lives.

Fear, anxiety, and phobias are closely related as concepts, but it is important to distinguish them. The scientists specializing in emotions recognize fear as one of the six basic feelings. Being a perceptual process, it plays a crucial role in human life.

Carroll Ellis Izard, one of the founders of the theory of differential emotions, defines fear as a fundamental emotion that arises from the perception of a threat, and prompts a person to engage in defensive behavior. In other words, fear is a rational reaction to a specific situation.

For example, if we’re attacked by a wild animal, all of the survival systems in our bodies go into overdrive. Fear is essential for our survival because it motivates us to seek the best solution in a given situation and develop the necessary skills and abilities.

Interestingly, fear is often contrasted with courage.

In fact, a courageous person is the one who faces their fear and confronts it. For a courageous person, fear becomes a helper and an ally.

Anxiety stands very close to fear. If we ask any person if they’ve ever experienced anxiety and then tell them to describe it, we’ll likely receive an affirmative answer. When describing anxiety, people will recall it as an unpleasant state. They’ll talk about a feeling of uneasiness and confusion.

Experts note that anxiety is a complex emotional experience, meaning it consists of several emotions. Most often, anxiety includes fear, sadness, shame, anger, and curiosity. Anxiety typically arises in a state of uncertainty, when circumstances are unpredictable and can constitute a threat to a person, or when they appear threatening. (“I feel like something bad is going to happen“).

When fear becomes too intense and unreasonable, it is called a phobia.

Most researchers agree that phobias are acquired disorders, yet experts currently disagree on how they are acquired. Some believe that a biological predisposition underlies the development of phobias, while others state that phobias are formed on the basis of traumatic experiences.

The socio-cultural environment also plays a significant role in the emergence and prevalence of phobias. Modern experts, such as American psychologists Aaron Beck and Martin Seligman, argue that no single factor can fully explain the development of phobias.

The forming of a phobia is determined by a combination of hereditary predisposition, individual experience, social environment, and cultural and historical context. So, what do we mean by a phobia? In his book “Fear… Anxiety… Phobia…” Dmitry Kovpak gives the following definition:

“A phobia is a persistent and unreasonable fear of specific objects, people, animals, actions, or situations.” No classification currently provides a definitive list of phobias, however, researchers distinguish several categories of phobic disorders.”

Monophobias are distinguished in a separate group.

Those are defined as cases with only one source of fear: a specific animal, situation, or sensation. In generalized phobias, the fear extends to a wide range of factors. For example, a person may fear not only getting into an elevator but also any other enclosed space.

This category includes the most well-known phobias: agoraphobia (fear of crowds, fear of public transportation, etc.), angiophobia (fear of suffocation), and others. Other categories of phobias include social phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (a person is compelled to repeat various protective rituals to avoid frightening events), and others.

The number of phobias is constantly growing, as a phobia can develop in relation to virtually any object.

For example, there are conversations around the emergence of nomophobia—the fear of leaving the house without a phone.

It is worth noting that the cultural, historical, and social environment of a person’s development influences greatly the emergence of phobias.

After all, every period of time shapes people’s perceptions of threat and security. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, the importance of traditional institutions weakened, and the ideas of “being oneself” and “finding one’s own identity” began to emerge.

If we look at Sigmund Freud’s patients, they had to overcome feelings of guilt due to their inability to separate from society. Modern people, however, have learned well how to be separate from others, how to “be oneself.” Now they develop a fear of forming attachments.

A significant factor in modern society is the growing demands placed on individuals.

Modern culture is focused on achievement, success, and high productivity. People are constantly faced with the need to meet social expectations, develop professional skills, and demonstrate success. Therefore, social phobias associated with public speaking, interacting with strangers, and the possibility of being negatively assessed by others are particularly common today.

People of the past had to accept predetermined social roles. Modern people have gained the opportunity to independently construct their own biography. We often tell children, “Unlimited possibilities lie before you; you can become whoever you want.”

It would seem that humanity has gained the freedom it always dreamed of.

But we face a paradox: the more society emphasizes individual uniqueness and freedom of choice, the more responsibility falls on the individual. After all, failures are also beginning to be perceived as personal. We no longer view them as a consequence of circumstances, but rather as a personal failure. Researchers associate this fact with the rise in social anxiety, fear of evaluation, perfectionism, and other modern phobias.

In most cases, phobias and anxiety disorders are treatable.

Various psychotherapeutic approaches offer effective treatment methods. Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered the primary tool. However, other psychotherapeutic methods are also used in the treatment of phobias, such as psychodynamic therapy, humanistic therapy based on the work of Carl Rogers, Gestalt therapy, and others.

The choice of a treatment method depends on the type of anxiety disorder and the needs of each individual patient.

Gestalt therapist Giovanni Salonia writes that “every psychotherapeutic theory must respond to the socio-cultural changes occurring in society.”

The prevalence of phobias in modern society is due to a combination of social, cultural, and psychological factors.

Information overload, the influence of social media, high levels of uncertainty, increasing demands on the individual, and constant exposure to threatening messages create fertile ground for the development of anxiety disorders.

It is important to recognize the problem and seek professional help promptly.

This will help improve quality of life and overcome phobias. It’s important for modern people to pay attention to their mental health, and for specialists to develop effective methods for the prevention and treatment of phobias.