Specific Phobia
When we think about specific phobia and look at it through the lens of the cognitive model, the content of fear in the client that experiences specific phobia is simply fear to the specific situation or the object that they are afraid of. And the strategy they utilize to address that fear is simply avoidance. As long as I avoid that specific situation or that specific object, I'm safe. Unfortunately, many individuals with specific phobia don't come asking for help because their avoidance is working for them.
But it can really work against them. For instance, a client of mine with a cat phobia, believe that any cat of any size would turn towards her and attack, jump on her face and claw her eyes out. I'm afraid of cats. I'm not gonna go anywhere where I know a cat exists if a friend has a cat. I'm not going to that house. You know, I'm not gonna purposely put myself around a cat. I'm never gonna have a cat as a pet. But it became much more pervasive than that.
She would go to a supermarket, for instance, and couldn't get out of her car because you know a random cat might be walking around the parking lot. And so she would have circle the parking lot looking to make sure no cats were there. She'd park her car. She'd run into the store, but she couldn't get back to her car. And she'd have call a family member to come and rescue her and drive her back to the car because you never know when a cat might show up.
Similarly, When the family would travel to the beach for a vacation, often there's an outdoor shower at the beach. She could never utilize the outdoor shower that she so wish she could use with the sky overhead, her fear that a random cat may show up. Then it turns out the family decides they're going to take a vacation out of the country. And they've decided that they're gonna go to Mexico. My client has heard that cats run free all over Mexico, that they walk around hotel properties, that they walk around outdoor restaurants that they walk around the airport.
So she was convinced that the minute she got off the plane, a cat would lunge towards her, and attack her. And because of that, her entire extended family was planning this trip and her fear was preventing her from the thing she most valued in life, being with her family. Keep in mind that many of those individuals out there in the world that have specific phobia that are doing a good job avoiding that, never come into treatment, but the ones that come through our office are exactly those individuals where this fear is now interfering with their lives. And that's why we often see lots and lots of flying phobics and driving phobics that specifically those fears are disruptive to their life interfering their freedom and their mobility.
And similarly, if you wanna work in, medically related profession and you have a fear of blood or needles. Clearly, those fears are going to disrupt your life, and that's when they—these clients—present.