Fear and phobias treatment

fear and survival

A long time ago when our ancestors lived, man used to use his instincts to collect food and to survive, and if man didn't have the emotion called fear so that he can run from predators you may have not been here by now.

When man at that time faced some kind of danger, his body turns into a state called fight or flight response. Adrenaline is pumped into his blood in order to give him the ability either to start a fight or run away as fast as he can.

This fight and flight response causes many changes like withdrawing blood from sensitive parts (like stomach so that you can bear much higher pain), heart beats faster, blood is pumped into muscles so they get stronger and allow you to do more than you can normally do. Your whole system becomes in an alert state to face any danger, so looking at the situation from another perspective, when you are afraid, you are much stronger than when you are not!! The only problem with fight or flight response is when it is incorrectly triggered, like being launched just before you stand up for making a speech or a presentation.

fear as a disorder

Here is where the disorder comes into play, the incorrect perception of the situation caused you to think that you are in danger and so you became very anxious and afraid. So after all, fears are here to protect you from things that you think that they can harm you. There are many types and forms of fear, these include fear of rejection, fear of change, phobias with all of its forms (like fear of spiders, heights, dogs, animals, darkness or closed places), fear of failure and even fear of success.

Some fears are culture created, your culture tought you to fear that certain object, you were tought to be afraid of certain things that actually may posses no big danger and if you were left without being told that such things are dangerous you may have not feared them as a grown up.

fear and phobias treatment

One of the methods you can use to get rid of your fears is exposure therapy, where you expose yourself to the feared situation over and over until you find that there is nothing dangerous about. But remember this can only be used when the fear is arising from an irrational idea, like being afraid of darkness or ghosts.

one other very effective method is systematic desensitization.systematic desensitization is a method of therapy that is helpful in treating anxiety and phobias while not involving sudden direct exposure like exposure therapy do, in systematic desensitization the fearful situation is divided into levels and each level is experienced alone until you can be relaxed while facing it, if that succeeds you should then move onto the next level and do the same until you end up relaxed in the whole situation.

Cognitive behaviour therapy can also be used, cognitive behaviour therapy works on altering that way you think, and by changing your thoughts your unwanted emotions are not going to be triggered at all.

Fear and unknown

Very big part of fear is because of lack of knowledge about the feared object, that’s why some people fear dark places, because they don’t know what kind of danger they will face in there.

If fear of the unknown is your problem then do your best to face your feared objects in order to collect more information about them, if you fear darkness then go to dark places, sit there, discover what have you been fearing since years and live with your fears, and then you will discover that your fears became much less because your knowledge of the object will remove the effect of fear of the unknown.

fear and courage

One famous misconception about courage is that courage is not having fears,and that's not correct, courage is not the state of mind of where you don’t feel any dangers nor feel afraid, courage is moving forward towards your fears instead of running away from them.

Fear is having the feeling that you should stop here, courage is to continue moving although you do feel so.2knowmyself is not a simple article website nor it’s a place where you will find shallow fixes, but it’s a place where you will find effective techniques that are backed by psychology and that are presented in obvious and understandable format. If you think that this is some kind of marketing hype then see what other visitors say about 2knowmyself.The book How to make someone fall in love with you was released by 2knowmyself.com; the book will dramatically increase your chance of letting someone fall in love with you.
Did that help?

Yes, but I want to know how to use exposure to get rid of my fears?

Not until you tell me more about systematic desensitization

Ok but tell me more about cognitive behaviour therapy

No,I suffer from fear of rejection, help me!

I guess I have fear of change, what to do?

i have fear of public speaking, what to do?

hmm, I want to know more about phobias!!

i fear approaching groups of people,what to do?

my problem is that i fear physical activites, i dread fights!!

i fear lonliness!! what to do?

i have got fear of success,how to overcome it?

i know thats weird,but i fear being seen alone!!