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Are phobias best understood as an exaggeration of normal fears?
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Mon Jun 19 2006
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Are phobias best understood as an exaggeration of normal fears? According to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (APA, 1994) phobias are characterised by a persistent fear of an object or situation which is out of proportion to any threat posed. Moreover, this fear is recognised by the sufferer as excessive yet can still cause extreme avoidance behavior. However, different paradigms have debated the ways in which normal, adaptive and proportionate fear is distinguished from fear that is diagnosed as phobic (Rachman, 1978). The differences between a dimensional interpretation of phobias which sees the disorder as an exaggeration of normal fear and a categorical approach which views phobias as being distinctly different from normal fear will be examined with reference to features of several types of phobic disorders. An overview of influential paradigms of phobias will be given focusing on whether they view this disorder as being categorically...
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