Phobia: So what exactly is a phobia?

The word phobia is derived from the Greek word for fear: “phobos”. In modern, English-speaking nations, though, it seems to have two separate definitions. These are: a) an extreme and overwhelming fear of something or b) an extreme intolerance of something. I’ll just give an example of each.

Arachnophobia fits the first definition. It’s an intense fear of spiders. I know a handful of people that suffer this and it’s quite alarming to see them react in the way that they do, even when shown just a picture of a spider or one appears on TV. It’s quite clear that spiders cause them a great deal of discomfort. Now, I don’t like spiders, I could never see me owning one as a pet, but equally, I could never envision myself being turned into a quivering wreck at the sight of one either.

Homophobia, the fear of homosexuals, however, in all the instances that I’ve witnessed, has little to do with an intense fear but rather it’s an intense dislike. So here we can see a totally different interpretation of phobia.

So, now that we’ve established that, what’s the difference between an ordinary fear and an “intense fear” type of phobia? A fear is something that causes mild discomfort but can quite easily be overcome. For example, I have a fear of public speaking. I’ve stood in front of a room full of people on a couple of occasions and given a speech. Prior to getting up I did feel anxious and, on the first occasion, my legs did feel like jelly. But, after I’d walked out on stage and got going with what I had to say, the anxiety and jelly legs just faded away and I started to enjoy it. A person with a phobia of the intense fear kind will experience the same sensations that I’ve just described, except, their anxiety and jelly legs will feel so overwhelmingly uncomfortable that, in some cases at least, the sufferer would rather die than confront what makes them feel that way.

Now, whilst I don't, and never have suffered from arachnophobia, or homophobia for that matter, I was agoraphobic for over twenty years. Agoraphobia is an intense fear of panic attacks. To give it its full definition, it’s an anxiety disorder, which brings about an intense fear within the sufferer, of being left in an extremely embarrassing state following a panic attack. In more advanced cases, the sufferer may become housebound in order to avoid situations that bring on panic attacks (for a more complete explanation, please visit my agoraphobia definition page).

Given that the phobia is so intense that it brings about feelings of the nature that I described above. Can it ever successfully be cured? Until relatively recently, the answer to that question was a resounding no. A phobia sufferer either had to put up with their nightmare or had to use some medication or other to suppress their feelings.

Today, however, it’s a different story. Charles Linden developed a system to cure his own agoraphobia and then went on to create The Linden Method so that other phobia sufferers could follow in his footsteps. As I said earlier, I was an agoraphobic for over twenty years and, by following Charles’ teachings, I was able to take total control of my life once more and put my phobia behind me.