specific phobia
Overview of the disorder
A phobia is an irrational fear,
intense and persistent that the person feels in the presence of a situation or
object, making stimulus.
Phobias are irrational because
they always fear that produces not linked or associated with a real danger.
In the manifestation and
duration of this mental disorder can participate various factors including sex,
age, and type of reaction to the situation or object (Nathan, Gorman, and
Salkind, 2005). For example, in the case of examinations fear tends to lie in childhood.
There are three types of
phobias: agoraphobia, specific phobia and social phobia.
According to the DSM-IV-TR (American
Psychiatric Association, 2002), specific phobia diagnosis is classified as
anxiety disorders, and the code: F 40.2.
Previously specific phobia
simple phobia was called. This name tends to appreciate the phobia as a mental
disorder less serious than it actually was. Hence, its change by: specific
phobia. Furthermore, this
name change the DSM-IV-TR is equated with ICD-10 (International Classification
of Diseases, Tenth Revision in).
The individual suffering from
specific phobia feels intense and persistent fear, and at the same time a need
to avoid that particular situation or object, making phobic stimulus.
Many people with this type of
anxiety reach normal considering getting it. This is because, it is assumed to
be socially unavoidable experience phobic anxiety to any stimulus.
Inside there are five specific
phobia subtypes that collect different stimuli to which manifests phobic
disorder. These are:
- Animal Type: such as fear of
cockroaches, dogs, spiders, snakes, etc..
- Environmental Type: as fear
of water, storms, open spaces, to the cliffs, to earthquakes, etc.
- Type Blood-Injection-Injury:
as fear of receiving injections at the sight of blood or injury, etc..
- Situational Type: as fear of
examinations, to ride on airplanes, driving cars, going through tunnels, closed
areas to get on the elevators, etc..
- Other types, such as fear of
choking, vomiting, people disguised, to loud sounds, etc..
Of all the most common specific
phobias are situational, and more unusual animals fear.
The DSM-IV-TR indicates that "in
less than 18 years, the duration of the symptoms must have been at least six
months" to be classified as situational type specific phobia. This is an
important piece of information to properly diagnose this disorder phobic child.
Specific phobia and anxiety
disorder can also be displayed as a maladaptive pattern of response to
situations and stimuli of school. Detailed analysis of the reaction of anxiety
to distinguish different patterns or types of responses such as:
- The cognitive: the images, perceptions,
valuations, interpretations, beliefs and rational thoughts or automatic and the
student is linked to the phobic situation (eg thinking that there should have
been submitted to the examination).
- The psycho physiological: seen
with the significant increase in student autonomic arousal to phobic stimuli (erg
the sweaty hands and wet due to the increase in these sweat gland activity).
- The emotional / sentimental:
are the set of negative emotions and feelings that students feel after
cognitively perceive and assess phobic stimuli as threatening
(eg the negative feeling of
guilt he feels for the fact that they suffer from this condition), and their
bodily responses (psycho physiological changes).
- The motor: manifest when the
motor behavior of children and adolescents are intended to disrupt, delay or
prevent interaction with stimuli triggers that cause the phobic response (eg
refusal to take the test for fear of stopping, getting out of class) .
An essential feature of this
specific phobia situational anxiety before academic examinations is that the
phobic stimulus that causes a particular aspect of the school context, hence to
be known and also diagnosed as school phobia (Sandin, 1997; Horse and Simon, 2005).
It is important not to confuse it with other causes of truancy as:
- Separation anxiety (TAS) is
a severe anxiety disorder that many children and adolescents experience having
to go to school and adults separated from their caregivers (mostly mothers), or
home. Among its most prominent symptoms are: the persistence to oppose going to
school (must be at least four weeks), apathy, isolation from friends, and
sadness. This condition is frequently associated with depression.
- The school refusal (RE): when
students refuse to go to school to experience intense anxiety to the
environmental context of the same. It may be because of fear of separation or
some specific aspect of the school situation in which it participates (eg fear
of repeating the course and away from their peers).
- The dropout (AE): occurs
when children do not attend school because parents allow it or decide to not
give them value to schooling. This problem is typical of cultural and
socioeconomic levels low and humble.
- The truancy (HN): occurs
when students escape or avoid going to school out of boredom or aversion. Unlike
school phobic disorder or separation anxiety, students do not come home because
he leaves with a group of friends (who are not going to school). These problem
behaviors are frequently associated with adolescents with childhood behavior
disorders (TC). Often come from broken homes, they do not monitor the
activities of their children, knowing that they stay home from school.
- For other mental disorders (TM):
students stop going to school to have a mental disorder, among which are the
following: agoraphobia, generalized anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress
disorder, social phobia, obsessive -compulsive disorder (OCD), etc..
- For other behavior disorders
(TC): students refuse to go to school by developing certain childhood behavior
disorder. Examples of these behaviors could be: attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), stuttering, enuresis, encopresis, negativism challenging, selective
autism, difficulties with school performance, truancy, etc..
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