Phobia animal

Animal phobias These often involve an intense fear of spiders, snakes, rodents, dogs, or any other animal stimulus. Although there is some natural and adaptive inclination to be scared of spiders, snakes, and certain other animals, since they might be poisonous or pose some other health threat, the phobic person has an exfreme/y intense and inappropriate fear of these stimuli. 

Available evidence indicates that systematic desensitization and in vivo exposure are the most effective treatment methods available. Pharmacological treatment has not been well investigated, but studies involving antidepressants suggest that TCAs and MAOIs are ineffective ( 85, 86 and 87). In addition, three studies suggest that sedative-hypnotic anxiolytics may undermine the behavioral treatment of specific phobias (88, 89 and 90). In another study, volunteers with animal phobias were exposed to their phobic object 1.5 hours after administration of either tolamolol, diazepam, or placebo in a double-blind crossover design. Tolamolol abolished the stress-induced tachycardia but had no beneficial behavioral or subjective effects ( 91). 

There is something distinctly human about social anxiety. Mark Twain once remarked, Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to. Although there are other mammalian species with complex social pecking orders, we, as humans, are particularly sensitive to how we are perceived by others. This sensitivity, when marked by a fear of evaluation by others, can become maladaptive. If that fear is transient and leads to little or no avoidance of social interactions, then it is considered normal shyness. However, when the social consequences of that fear become more pronounced, then the diagnosis of social phobia, now more commonly referred to as social anxiety disorder, is warranted. 

The key feature of specific phobia is an intense and persistent fear of circumscribed situations or specific stimuli (e.g. exposure to animals, blood). Confrontation with the situation or stimulus provokes almost invariably an immediate anxiety response. Often, the situation or stimulus is therefore avoided or endured with considerable dread. Adolescents and adults with this disorder recognize that this anxiety reaction is excessive or unreasonable, but this may not be the case in children. For a diagnosis according to DSM-IV, the avoidance, fear or anxious anticipation of the phobic stimulus must interfere with the persons daily life or the person must be markedly distressed about having the phobia. Further, the phobic reactions are not better explained by another mental disorder, such as, for example, social phobia. 

The person might exhibit fear responses simply when he or she imagines the stimuli. The person will take extreme precautions to avoid encountering these animals. For example, a person with a phobia of snakes might refuse to go hiking or even to walk around a grassy backyard. 

Another reason why this idea might not be a perfect explanation involves a learning process called extinction. When two events are paired together (as in the case of the rat and the loud sound), humans and animals can learn that one event (the rat) can predict another (the loud sound) and thus develop a fear of the rat. However, when the events are subsequently presented alone (the rat without the loud sound), the fear diminishes over time through a process called extinction. Extinction does not work well with phobias. That is, simply presenting the feared object in a safe environment does not... 

The anxiolytic activity of several compounds in some, but not all, animal models of anxiety in fact suggests that different receptor subtypes may modulate different types of anxiety as discussed below. It would not be surprising if the specific serotonin links to disorders of anxiety also differ among the various disorders of anxiety such as generalized anxiety versus obsessive-compulsive disorder versus panic disorder versus social phobia versus mixed anxiety depression. Such studies are in progress, and much further research is necessary to clarify the potential links between subtypes of anxiety and subtypes of serotonin receptors. 

Specific phobias used to be called simple phobias. They are excessive and unreasonable fears of specific objects or situations, such as flying in an airplane, heights, animals, seeing an injection, or seeing blood. In specific phobias, exposure to the feared situation or object causes an immediate anxiety response or even a full-blown... 

---