Overcome your fears and phobias

Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes, Andre Agassi is afraid of spiders, Steven Spielberg is afraid of insects and Whoopi Goldberg is afraid of flying. If you're afraid of something, you're in good company. In fact, 50 per cent of us have a specific fear and as many as 11 per cent of us will develop a phobia at some point in our lives.

Common fears and phobias include: heights, blood, enclosed spaces, animals, and flying. Regardless of what frightens you, it's important to know that you can overcome your fears.

Understanding fears — Why are we afraid?
"Fear is a normal emotional expression that everyone has," says Dr. Mitchell Schare, director of Hofstra University's Phobia & Trauma Clinic in New York. "Fears are helpful to us at times. For example, we should have a fear of driving too fast on a rain-slicked highway. That helps keep us alive."

What's the difference between a fear and a phobia?
A phobia, continues Schare, is when the fear becomes too extreme. Appropriate fear is one thing, but when the fear escalates to a point where that fear alters and affects your everyday life, you may be suffering from a phobia.

In the driving scenario Schare mentioned earlier, the fear wouldn't escalate to a phobia unless you started to avoid driving altogether, even when you know there's a low probability of an accident. Similarly, if you were humiliated or embarrassed in a specific social situation, you might find yourself avoiding all social situations, despite the low possibility of another embarrassment.

Phobias can be identified as social phobias (where people are overwhelmingly anxious and excessively self-conscious in social situations) and specific phobias (fear of the dentist, flying, bugs, animals, driving).

It's easy to relate to the fear of public speaking or snakes, but what about phobias that, to most of us, seem completely irrational? These include: coulrophobia (fear of clowns), ergophobia (fear of work), gymnophobia (fear of nudity), and pupaphobia (fear of puppets).

"Probably the most common factor in phobias of all kinds is an event or situation that might not seem, on the face of it, non-threatening," says Dr. Patrick Keelan, a psychologist for the Calgary Counselling Centre. "Something negative happens in the presence of those people or that object and then that neutral stimulus becomes associated with negativity. Suddenly you start to fear the neutral stimulus."

An extremely negative experience with a clown might trigger a fear that eventually blossoms into a full-blown phobia.

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Is it time to overcome fear?
"Public speaking is an example of a social disorder," says Keelan. "But if your everyday life doesn't involve getting up and speaking in front of people, you probably wouldn't be diagnosed with a disorder because it isn't something that's hampering your life."

On the other hand, continues Keelan, if you're a salesperson, a teacher or a politician, that same fear of public speaking becomes a huge problem. When an irrational fear of a situation or object is coupled with an avoidance of that situation or object and that result interferes significantly with your life, you may have a phobia that needs to be dealt with.

And while avoiding the object or situation at the centre of your phobia might reduce your anxiety, it won't cure the phobia.

How can you overcome fear?
To overcome a fear or phobia, you must confront it. But fear not! You can slowly challenge and conquer your fears."The most common and most effective way of dealing with a phobia would be gradual exposure," says Keelan. "We develop a hierarchy of situations related to the phobia, with the first step being the situation that leads to the lowest amount of anxiety."

So if you were too scared to drive a car, the first step to conquer the fear or phobia might be for you to sit in that car, in the driveway. The last, and most stressful step would be driving on a busy highway. When you're able to stay in a step rather than run away from it and you're able to tolerate it while your anxiety decreases, you're ready to move on to your next step.

At the Phobia & Anxiety Clinic in New York, Dr. Mitchell Schare uses virtual reality technology to help people overcome their phobias. Clients confront their fears and phobias in safe, virtual environments where a computer creates imagery about their particular phobia.

Sometimes phobias develop around irrational thinking, when your thoughts are out of proportion with reality. According to Keelan, therapists can use cognitive therapy -- which involves exploring the phobia and putting it into a more realistic perspective -- to help you challenge your fear. If your phobias are controlling you, talk to your family physician about how to get help.

For most of us, conquering an everyday fear doesn't require therapy. Learning to gradually and safely expose yourself to your fear might be all that's required to master your fear.

Recommended reading (courtesy of Anxiety Canada)
Flying Without Fear (New Harbinger Publications, 1996) by Duanne Brown.
Living with Fear (McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics, 1981) by Isaac M. Marks.
Overcoming Animal & Insect Phobias (New Harbinger, 2005) by Martin Antony, Randi McCabe.
Overcoming Medical Phobias: How to Conquer Fear of Blood, Needles, Doctors & Dentists (New Harbinger, 2006) by Martin M Antony, Mark A. Watling.
Shyness & Social Anxiety Workbook (New Harbinger, 2008) by Martin M Antony, Richard P. Swinson.

Overcoming fear is one of 3 ways to pursue your dreams. Tackle the other two obstacles and get exactly what you want!

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