Sunday, October 25, 2009

NAME THAT PHOBIA!


Fear of Women/Fear of Men- Gynophobia/Androphobia
Fear of Islam- Islamaphobia
Fear of homosexuality- you guessed it homophobia.

Some phobias seem like a mechanism to exploit a minority or an excuse to get yourself off the hook. Ya know... some weird guy asks you out on a date just tell him you have Androphobia, or if your a terrorist plead mentally ill and tell the judge you were only holding those Muslims hostage because you have Islamaphobia.

The truth is, true phobias are considered an anxiety disorder and are psychological. The sufferer is a victim to the fear. The reason they can be treated is becasue the fear is a strong but irrational fear of something of something that poses little or no danger. Fear is a normal response to danger, but with a phobia it is excessive.

If you become anxious and extremely self-conscious in everyday social situations, you could have a social phobia. Other common phobias involve tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, animals and blood.

People with phobias try to avoid what they are afraid of. Otherwise a person can experience anything from panic and fear to trembling or a strong desire to get away. Medicines, therapy or both are treatments that help most people with phobias.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a method that says, by confronting rather than fleeing the object of fear, the person becomes accustomed to it and can lose the terror and dread he or she once felt. Medications can control the anxiety and panic.

The amygdala, an area of the brain located behind the pituitary gland is responsible for the secretion of hormones that control fear or agression. When a response is initiated the amygdala releases hormones so your body goes into an alert stage generally referred to as the flight-or-fight response.

Phobias arise from a combination of external events and internal predispositions.Many specific phobias can be traced back to a triggering event like a traumatic experience at an early age. Social phobias and agoraphobia have more complex causes that are not entirely known. It is believed that heredity, genetics, and brain chemistry combined with life-experiences play a major role in the development of anxiety disorders, phobias and panic attacks.

Try these out...Answers proceed descriptions

1) fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describ
e nationalistic political beliefs and movements. It is also used in fictional work to describe the fear or dislike of space aliens
2)
Fear of ventriloquist's dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues - anything that falsly represents a sentient being.
3)
Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism.
4)Fear of seeing, thinking about or having an erect penis.
5)Fear or hatred of poetry.
6)Fear of the figure 8

7)Fear of phobias or the fear of fear
8)
fear that originated from the Biblical verse Revelation
13:18 which indicates that the number 666 is the Number of the Beast, linked to Satan or the Anti-Christ.

Answers:
1)Xenophobia
2)
Automatonophobia
3)
Enissophobia
4)
Ithyphallophobia

5)Metrophobia
6)Octophobia
7)Phobophobia
8)Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia ( WOW)




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