Acrophobia

Acrophobis is an extreme or irrational fear of heights. Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, especially if there is little or no protection. Those who are confident in such situations may be said to have a head for heights. Acrophobia sufferers can experience a panic attack in a high place and become too agitated to get themselves down safely. Between 2 and 5 percent of the general population suffer from acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men.

Causes:

Traditionally, acrophobia has been attributed, like other phobias, to conditioning or a traumatic experience involving heights. Recent studies have cast doubt on this explanation; fear of falling, along with fear of loud noises, is one of the most commonly suggested inborn or non-associative fears.

When researching the origin of phobias, the fist thing you’ll discover is they usually develop between early childhood and adolescence. Examples of phobias that children can be prone to include: Nyctophobia (fear of the dark), Teratophobia (fear of monsters), Arachnophobia (fear of spiders), Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), Dentophobia (fear of dentists) and Aichmophobia (fear of needles). In fact, most young children go through phases of being afraid of these things, but they usually grow out of it. Phobias can develop later, but after the age of 40 it’s rare.

Fear of heights and the complex phobias like agoraphobia and social phobia are unusual in children because their formation is typically more gradual, and normally develops during adolescence.

Phobias are defined as an unrelenting, irrational fear response triggered by exposure to a feared object or situation. The different kinds of phobias all have similar signs and symptoms involving an intense state of anxiety leading to the sufferer avoiding the feared situations.

A quick flick around the internet will demonstrate the understandable obsession with finding out what causes phobias (or any distressing mental disorder for that matter).

The cause of phobias is usually attributed to some external learning experience outside of the control of the phobia sufferer. The logic is easy to understand and goes something like this.

Before “X” Happened I Was Fine…
After “X” Happened I Had A Phobia…
Therefore “X” Must Have Caused The Phobia.

The Traumatic Event –

The favourite of psychology and psychotherapy professionals everywhere. A bad experience at the dentist leading to a fear of dentists, being bitten leading to a fear of dogs, a bumpy flight with turbulence and suddenly flying isn’t as fun anymore, an embarrassing 5 minutes in front of the class at school and the thought of public speaking leaves you shaking.

In fact, all the common wisdom tells us any traumatic experience can lead to a phobia. This forms the basis of all the classical conditioning theories. However, our brains are a bit more complex than this. Very few of the phobics I’ve worked with actually got their phobia in this way.

Third party Traumatic events. 

This is where someone observes someone else experiencing a traumatic event, and learns to be frightened from this “witness” position. It doesn’t even have to be real. The number of people seeking treatment for fear of water more than doubled after the release of the film Jaws.

But real events also lead to phobias. It is estimated that the national fear of flying that led to the reduction in air travel and tourism after the terrible events of 9/11 reduced the output of the US economy by 0.75%. 0.75% might not sound like much but it’s the difference between a recovery and a recession.

Cultural Causes (learning from others) –

A few years ago there was a lot of debate about phobias being genetic. But it was all founded on the discovery that phobias are more common in women than men and was blown out of all proportion.

The reason that phobias crop up more in some families is because the individuals within that family have learnt to be frightened from other members. Observing the emotional reactions of others is strong evidence of a threat as far as your brain is concerned.

All these experiences may well have been the cause of the fear or anxiety you experienced at the time but, contrary to psychoanalytic theory, they are not the real cause of your phobia developing. After all, not everyone develops a phobia as a result of these experiences. .

If we’re going to find the real cause we need to take a look at how your brain works.

Symptoms:

Fear of heights symptoms

·         A rapid heart rate

·         Shortness of breath

·         Muscle tension

·         A hot flushed feeling

·         Trembling

·         An immanent feeling of apprehension and fear

When symptoms are extreme, you cannot even function normally. You feel as if your whole existence is at stake.

Treatment :

Systematic desensitization This is one of the ways to treat acrophobia without letting you to be directly exposed to the condition. This treatment takes place in levels and once you miss one, the whole system is disrupted.

Cognitive behavioral therapy This is a kind of treatment that transforms the way you think. In this way the fear as a form of unwanted thought is easily eliminated thus making you feel somewhat relaxed and comfortable. However, this sort of a therapeutic treatment may not be successful in all cases.

Hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques are other wonderful ways of treating acrophobia though their success in the matter is quite a controversial factor.