Phobias

The origin of a phobia is usually associated with the emotions caused by a traumatic event from early life.

For instance, fear of flying may have been started by an initial event where the child was perhaps trapped in an enclosed space and although she/he recovered from the event quite quickly but her/his subconscious mind locked this memory away for possible reference in the future.

Later in life when that person is perhaps under pressure and anxiety levels are high she/he may find themselves in the ‘enclosed space’ of an aeroplane in terrible weather. The subconscious mind, noting high anxiety, steps in with a panic behaviour response from the childhood event.

This is because the subconscious mind needs to find the nearest matching experience in order to know how to behave.
This fear then finds a focus on the flight itself and thus the phobia is born which escalates in severity every time he attempts to fly. Continue...