According to psychology, phobia generally refers to unreasonable and illogical fear shown by someone towards something, someone and a place. Phobia is of several kinds. They are categorised as Simple Phobia, Social Phobia and Agora Phobia. According to our clinical reports, different types of phobia can be detected. Among them are exam and school phobia, social phobia, driving phobia, and phobia for walking over the bridges as well as disease phobia. Especially school children develop exam phobia in the eve of their exam. In this situation, symptoms such as restlessness, poor appetite, faintness loose motion and numbness can be observed.
Common Symptoms of phobia
- Unreasonable and illogical phobia towards insects such as cockroaches and spiders.
- Creating dreadful mental images and hallucinations
- Weakness of the legs to walk.
- Excessive perspiration
- Restlessness and brooding.
- Shivering of knees and muscular pain.
The above details are given to you to have a general understanding on phobia. Our main objective is to analyse phobia through BACP based on Buddhism
According to Abhidhamma, (Ultimate Doctrine) phobia is another name used in place of anger or aversion. This same idea is expressed in different ways such as hatred, aversion, unpleasantness, resentment and fear. This mental state exists more or less in every person. This kind of phobia can be ascribed to in terms of one’s security and self-respect. But it cannot be categorized as phobia. Phobia can be defined as a state that goes beyond the boundary of normal state of anger. Anger or aversion is a normal emotional state. According to Buddhism, extreme state or ecstasy of fear is introduced as ill-will or aversion which is one of the five hindrances. These are called hindrances because they prevent a person to see the things correctly as they are. The mental state described by the word ‘ill-will’ is introduced as phobia.
This particular unreasonable and illogical kind of phobia cannot be understood by a person or by his mind due to extreme fear that has enveloped his mind.
As this mental state of ‘ill-will’ has subjected human mind to great restlessness, the resultant consequence is phobia. The sufferer of this phobia is does not understand the logical reason or rationale for this phobia. There are many instances of aversion characterised in a human being’s life. Among them, deaths of one’s parents, children, dear and near ones, and losses incurred can be cited as aversion. Similarly, jealousy is as same as aversion which springs in one’s in mind when one sees others’ fortunes such as a bigger house and property, how others are honoured and are held in high esteem in the society etc. When one is robbed, when others disobey and disrespects one, pointing at one’s faults and being criticized and when recalling enmities, ill-will can again be created in one’s mind.
This state of ill-will being developed with the passage of time, it becomes and turns into a state of phobia. According to Buddhist analysis, when this state of ill-will and aversion in its transformation becomes phobia, behavioural changes could be observed. It is a great obstacle for a person to perform his/her daily work. Depending on the intensity and gravity of the condition of the patient, Counselling Behavioural Therapy should be administered.
