what is the phobia of being followed?

Answer 1

corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which is sent to the anterior pituitary. Here the pituitary releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which ultimately stimulates the release of cortisol. In relation to anxiety, the amygdala is responsible for activating this circuit, while the hippocampus is responsible for suppressing it. Glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus monitor the amount of cortisol in the system and through negative feedback can tell the hypothalamus to stop releasing CRH.Studies on mice engineered to have high concentrations of CRH showed higher levels of anxiety, while those engineered to have no or low amounts of CRH receptors were less anxious. In people with phobias, therefore, high amounts of cortisol may be present, or alternatively, there may be low levels of glucocorticoid receptors or even serotonin (5-HT). Disruption by damage For the areas in the brain involved in emotion—most specifically fear— the processing and response to emotional stimuli can be significantly altered when one of these regions becomes lesioned or damaged. Damage to the cortical areas involved in the limbic system such as the cingulate cortex or frontal lobes have resulted in extreme changes in emotion. Other types of damage include Klüver–Bucy syndrome and Urbach–Wiethe disease. In Klüver–Bucy syndrome, a temporal lobectomy, or removal of the temporal lobes, results in changes involving fear and aggression. Specifically, the removal of these lobes results in decreased fear, confirming its role in fear recognition and response. Bilateral damage to the medial temporal lobes, which is known as Urbach–Wiethe disease, exhibits similar symptoms of decreased fear and aggression, but also an inability to recognize emotional expressions, especially angry or fearful faces.The amygdala's role in learned fear includes interactions with other brain regions in the neural circuit of fear. While lesions in the amygdala can inhibit its ability to recognize fearful stimuli, other areas such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the basolateral nuclei of the amygdala can affect the region's ability to not only become conditioned to fearful stimuli but to eventually extinguish them. The basolateral nuclei, through receiving stimulus info, undergo synaptic changes that allow the amygdala to develop a conditioned response to fearful stimuli. Lesions in this area, therefore, have been shown to disrupt the acquisition of learned responses to fear. Likewise, lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (the area responsible for monitoring the amygdala) have been shown to not only slow down the speed of extinguishing a learned fear response but also how effective or strong the extinction is. This suggests there is a pathway or circuit among the amygdala and nearby cortical areas that process emotional stimuli and influence emotional expression, all of which can be disrupted when an area becomes damaged. It is recommended that the terms distress and impairment take into account the context of the person's environment during diagnosis. The DSM-IV-TR states that if a feared stimulus, whether it be an object or a social situation, is absent entirely in an environment, a diagnosis cannot be made. An example of this situation would be an individual who has a fear of mice but lives in an area devoid of mice. Even though the concept of mice causes marked distress and impairment within the individual, because the individual does not usually encounter mice, no actual distress or impairment is ever experienced. It is recommended that proximity to, and ability to escape from, the stimulus also be considered. As the phobic person approaches a feared stimulus, anxiety levels increase, and the degree to which the person perceives they might escape from the stimulus affects the intensity of fear in instances such as riding an elevator (e.g. anxiety increases at the midway point between floors and decreases when the floor is reached and the doors open). There are various methods used to treat phobias. These methods include systematic desensitization, progressive relaxation, Virtual Reality, modeling, medication and hypnotherapy. The good news is that over the past several decades, psychologists and other researchers have developed some effective behavioral and pharmacological treatments for phobia, as well as technological interventions Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial by allowing the person to challenge dysfunctional thoughts or beliefs by being mindful of their own feelings, with the aim that the person will realize that his or her fear is irrational. CBT may be conducted in a group setting. Gradual desensitization treatment and CBT are often successful, provided the person is willing to endure some discomfort. In one clinical trial, 90% of people were observed to no longer have a phobic reaction after successful CBT treatment.There is evidence that supports that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is effective in treating some phobias. Its effectiveness in treating complex or trauma-related phobias has not been empirically established yet. Mainly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, EMDR has been demonstrated as effective in easing phobia symptoms following a specific trauma, such as a fear of dogs following a dog bite. A method used in the treatment of a phobia is systematic desensitization, a process in which the people seeking help slowly become accustomed to their phobia, and ultimately overcome it. Traditional systematic desensitization involves a person being exposed to the object they are afraid of overtime, so that the fear and discomfort do not become overwhelming. This controlled exposure to the anxiety-provoking stimulus is key to the effectiveness of exposure therapy in the treatment of specific phobias. It has been shown that humor is an excellent alternative when traditional systematic desensitization is ineffective. Humor systematic desensitization involves a series of treatment activities that consist of activities that elicit humor with the feared object. Previously learned progressive muscle relaxation procedures can be used as the activities become more difficult in a person's own hierarchy level. Progressive muscle relaxation helps people relax their muscles before and during exposure to the feared object or phenomenon. Virtual reality therapy is another technique that helps phobic people confront a feared object. It uses virtual reality to generate scenes that may not have been possible or ethical in the physical world. It is equally as effective as traditional exposure therapy and offers some additional advantages. These include being able to control the scenes and having the phobic person endure more exposure than they might handle in reality. Medications can help regulate apprehension and fear of a particular fearful object or situation. Antidepressant medications such as SSRIs or MAOIs may be helpful in some cases of phobia. SSRIs (antidepressants) act on serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain. Since serotonin impacts mood, people may be prescribed an antidepressant. Sedatives such as benzodiazepines may also be prescribed, which can help people relax by reducing the amount of anxiety they feel. Benzodiazepines may be useful in acute treatment of severe symptoms, but the risk-benefit ratio is against their long-term use in phobic disorders. This class of medication has recently been shown as effective if used with negative behaviours such as alcohol abuse. Despite this positive finding, benzodiazepines are used with caution. Beta blockers are another medicinal option as they may stop the stimulating effects of adrenaline, such as sweating, increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, tremors and the feeling of a pounding heart. By taking beta-blockers before a phobic event, these symptoms are decreased, making the event less frightening. Hypnotherapy can be used alone and in conjunction with systematic desensitization to treat phobias. Through hypnotherapy, the underlying cause of the phobia may be uncovered. The phobia may be caused by a past event that the person does not remember, a phenomenon known as repression. The mind represses traumatic memories from the conscious mind until the person is ready to deal with them. Hypnotherapy may also eliminate the conditioned responses that occur during different situations. People are first placed into a hypnotic trance, an extremely relaxed state in which the unconscious can be retrieved. This state makes people more open to suggestion, which helps bring about desired change. Consciously addressing old memories helps individuals understand the event and see it in a less threatening light. Phobias are a common form of anxiety disorder, and distributions are heterogeneous by age and gender. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 8.7 percent and 18.1 percent of Americans suffer from phobias, making it the most common mental illness among women in all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25. Between 4 percent and 10 percent of all children experience specific phobias during their lives, and social phobias occur in one percent to three percent of children.A Swedish study found that females have a higher number of cases per year than males (26.5 percent for females and 12.4 percent for males). Among adults, 21.2 percent of women and 10.9 percent of men have a single specific phobia, while multiple phobias occur in 5.4 percent of females and 1.5 percent of males. Women are nearly four times as likely as men to have a fear of animals (12.1 percent in women and 3.3 percent in men) — a higher dimorphic than with all specific or generalized phobias or social phobias. Social phobias are more common in girls than in boys, while situational phobia occurs in 17.4 percent of women and 8.5 percent of men. The word phobia comes from the Greek: φόβος (phóbos), meaning "aversion", "fear" or "morbid fear". The regular system for naming specific phobias to use prefix based on a Greek word for the object of the fear, plus the suffix -phobia. However, there are many phobias irregularly named with Latin prefixes, such as apiphobia instead of melissaphobia (fear of bees) or aviphobia instead of ornithophobia (fear of birds