Is There A Difference Between Phobia and Fear?

There is a distinction between fears and phobias. A Fear is an emotional response to a real or perceived threat. Fears are common in the population and are often normal — or at least innocuous — reactions to objects or events. For example, many people fear spiders — they experience a mild to moderate anxiety reaction when they see one.

A Phobia is similar to a fear with one key difference: the anxiety they experience is so strong that it interferes with their quality of life and/ or their ability to function. Whereas many people fear spiders, only a small subsection of the population will meet criteria for a spider phobia. People who have a spider phobia often spend considerable time worrying about spiders, spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring they do not come in contact with a spider, and will avoid places and activities in order to avoid spiders.

Making a distinction between a fear and a phobia is useful because they are very different problems.

Similarly, we can make a distinction between being afraid of rejection and being phobic of rejection. Whereas most people are at least mindful and vigilant for rejection (it hurts, so it is best to avoid it if possible), there are members of the population that would be considered rejection phobic. While these two groups — fearful and phobic — obviously share some commonalities, they are fundamentally different groups.

When someone has a real phobia, they spend an extraordinary amount of time or make an unnecessarily large effort to avoid the thing they fear. Re-arranging your day and even your life to avoid being near a harmless spider (the vast majority of spiders on the planet are non-threatening) is extreme and unnecessary.

Fears and Phobias are no laughing matter.  For some people they are a minor issue, while for others they can become completely debilitating.  Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, NLP and Advanced Hypnotherapy techniques are an excellent choice to help with all fears and phobias. Fears and phobias do not have to continue affect and control your life; you can resolve them and start living freely again.