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0203 326 9160 0203 761 7026 0203 761 7027 0203 761 7029Approximately 2% of the UK population will have a phobia with women twice as likely as men to suffer. Phobias can be very disabling and often cause huge shame to the sufferer.
A phobia is a deep fear of a specific thing or situation, such as spiders or open spaces. Whilst many fears are perfectly understandable and do not interfere with our daily lives, others can create recurrent, even debilitating anxiety or prompt elaborate avoidance strategies.
Phobias can express themselves in a bewildering range of fears, many can be difficult for others to understand and lead the person involved to feel huge shame and embarrassment.
There are both physical, behavioural and emotional symptoms associated with a phobia – when faced with the source of the phobia, it’s common for someone to feel intense panic and fear.
Whilst we might all have fears, phobias can be overwhelming and distressing to live with and for many affected with fears of common situations, such as public spaces or flying, can have a serious impact on their lives and those of their family.
The therapy has been life transforming, I didn’t expect it to have such a big impact on my life but 6 months in and I have made huge progress! I am so proud of myself! Thank you to Clinical Partners for helping me, I never thought I would be here.
Marie, Bournemouth
Whilst most of us will have a strong fear about something, for instance spiders or flying, on the whole such fears won’t have much of an impact on our daily lives and won’t need any specific treatment.
For others though, their phobias and fears can have a very significant impact on their lives, holding them back from doing the things they want to do and causing them a huge amount of emotional distress. Phobias can even make it hard to hold down a job, continue in education or socialise with friends. For these people, professional help is advisable and can make a huge difference to their quality of life.
To understand if your phobia needs professional help:
If you aren’t sure whether your fears would constitute a phobia or if you should seek professional help, it might be worth considering the following:
Looking at the following, give each statement a score out of ten (1 = low, 10 = very high) thinking about how your phobia has impacted and disrupted the following parts of your life in the last month.
If you score 5 or above, it’s likely your phobias are becoming severe and would benefit from some professional help.
The anxiety test is an easy and anonymous way of finding out if the symptoms you are struggling with and how you are feeling is a result of anxiety. Your results may indicate whether you might benefit from treatment from one of our friendly clinicians.
Private psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy for adults and children, face-to-face and online nationwide.
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