Phobias and Addiction

1189 Words5 Pages
Phobias and addictions paper PSY/300 October 28, 2012 Richard Avery Classical and operant learning methods may help people be positive members of society; these two techniques could also have negative roles for a person. Phobias and addictions are conditions that affect the emotional wellbeing of people all over the world, and cause negative results. Phobia and addictions are both learned behaviors that can develop through any stage of life for an individual. A phobia is when a person has feelings of being uneasy, while around specific things, situations, or even places. The definition of phobia according to the dictionary (Merriam-Webster, 2012) is this: “Phobia is defined as an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.” People are not born with phobias; they develop over time and are usually a learned behavior. If a child sees someone scream when they see a spider this could develop into a phobia of spiders for the child. A phobia is an intense irrational fear of specific object and or things (Feldman, 2010). Any reasonable reactions to fear are overcome by the fear of the phobia. Most people that have phobia realize that their fear is illogical and not normal by society’s standards. Phobias can cause the sufferer to avoid things that other people do on a regular daily basis, such as driving, walking through a park where there might be dogs, flying in an airplane, and many other things people do without thinking about fearing the things around them. There are many different types of phobias and fears in the world. Phobias cripple people by not allowing them to obtain personal goals in their lives such as interacting with other people in society, career goals, educational and even personal goals. There are some people that are afraid to leave their homes. The
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