Description of acrophobia and methods of struggle

Fear of heights is one of the most widespread phobias, which occurs in both children and adults. The causes of anxiety, anxiety and panic associated with height, are diverse and in many ways individual. Currently, this phobia is quite successfully treated with the help of qualified psychologists or psychotherapists.

Fear of heights in psychology is called acrophobia. This phobia appears in people for various reasons, delivering a rather unpleasant and serious experience. According to the theory of evolution, man needs fear to develop internal resources in extreme living conditions, however, fear to an extreme extent becomes harmful to the body and even dangerous to health.

In the early stages, acrophobia is accompanied by a depressed psychological state, anxiety, but at the later stages, somatic symptoms are also connected: uncontrollable trembling, pain, rapid heartbeat, increased sweating.

Fear of heights is natural for humans, it protects us from risky actions and forces us to be cautious on elevations where you can fall and be crippled. However when she is comprehensive and intrusive, and its manifestations bring significant discomfort, you can talk about a phobia.

In medicine and science, it is customary to distinguish between natural caution on high-altitude terrain and pathological, uncontrolled fear of being on top. In the first case, a person is afraid, but can control himself, feels easy discomfort, but controls himself and the situation. In the second case, the disease is an obsessive fear that cannot be overcome, it significantly interferes with daily life.

Ordinary anxiety arises only when a dangerous situation occurs (say, when a person has his first flight by plane or jump into the water) and becomes stronger with a lack of complete information, as well as a lack of time to study the situation, choose the right solution, prepare. This is common to all healthy people and absolutely normal.

It has various clinical manifestations, both on the psychological and physiological levels. Between normal fear and pathology in psychology invariably exists a rather thin line. It is very easy to cross it - it is enough to get into adverse circumstances and any of us are more or less likely to develop acrophobia.

Obsessive fear of heights is determined even in our subconscious, and in some individuals who are predisposed to it, it can become stronger, more tangible and occur more and more often and compulsively, becoming an obvious disorder. This is not a rational feeling, but an uncontrollable fear. The patient himself does not understand why he is so scared of heights, cannot explain his behavior and cannot control himself. That is why It is very difficult to get rid of a phobia - it is much more difficult than ordinary fear.

Acrophobia is a real panic, which over time takes hold of the patient more and more, and extends to all areas of his life. Such behavior can lead to social isolation - both partial and almost complete. A person under the influence of such a disorder is deprived of freedom, constrained, unable to participate in many social activities, and sometimes hesitates to react to heights in front of other people.

Acrophobia delivers a lot of inconvenience. A person becomes truly addicted to his unconscious and all-encompassing fear. He cannot go hiking with his friends, relax at the ski resorts, take a flight or even take the stairs calmly. It often happens that the acrophobic refuses visits from relatives and friends who live in high-rise buildings.

Transparent floors in modern buildings and bridges over the rivers also cause painful discomfort. On similar objects in a sick individual in the literal sense panic is arising: he literally cannot move from his seat, he often sits down, tries to cover his face, grab hold of something steady, or squeeze a person’s hand.

At the physiological level, phobias also have obvious signs: severe dizziness or faintness, nausea, trembling. It must be borne in mind that such manifestations are life threateningAfter all, it is necessary to control your movements at altitude, and uncontrolled somatic symptoms are dangerous with possible injuries.

American psychiatrists have studied acrophobia for many years and their survey results show that, in the opinion of the absolute majority of people suffering from phobia, these people cannot control themselves, control feelings, decisions and their actions when they are in anxiety in a critical situation for themselves.

According to the phobic sufferers, they think that they will fall, and they also occasionally have a conflicting desire to jump. It is worth noting that almost all interviewed people had no visible symptoms of depression, and there was absolutely no inclination to commit suicide.

Acrophobia is independent of gender and age - it can occur in men, women, adults, adolescents, young children or the elderly. Today, specialists do not have a common and uniform interpretation of the causes of acrophobia. It is considered to be that such a disorder arises on the basis of adverse external and internal factors that complexly act on the psyche.

The leading role in the formation and development of any kind of phobia is played by the conditions for the formation of a personality: It is from childhood that a predisposition to certain types of mental disorders can be established. Very often, the fear of heights is determined by the carriers of “burdened” heredity, that is, those who have a family history of mental disorders. Sometimes phobia can be associated with organic damage to brain structures.

Often the appearance of acrophobia is preceded by the following situations.

• Regularly experienced stress: This can be a difficult and responsible job or personal failure. It is not even the factor that provokes stress that matters, but our reaction: if a person is restless and inclined to panic from trifles and such situations in life become more and more, then the risk of developing any phobic disorder increases many times.
• Alcohol abuse and uncontrolled intake of psychostimulants may also cause phobias.Remember that alcohol should not be abused, and medicines should be taken under the supervision and constant supervision of a physician.
• Negative experience of the growing up period coupled with excessive rigor, detachment and criticality of parents can also portend a phobia. Inconsistent education and lack of attention to children's fears or negative experiences from communicating in bad companies in the child lay a predisposition to develop a phobia that can manifest itself at any age.

Among acrophobes, there are often individuals with a psychasthenic constitution, the dominance of such properties as suspiciousness, fearfulness, sentimentality, timidity, shyness, and also excessive impressionability. Such people from birth are prone to disorders - they are very disturbing and easily excitable personalities.

In some rare cases, a strong and irrational fear of high places may be directly related to personal negative experiences, however, such a direct relationship is not fixed very often. Usually for the formation of a phobia you need a lot of factors in the complex. To identify any one rarely possible, but an experienced doctor will be able to detect the most dominant factors. To defeat a phobia, it will be necessary to fight precisely with its main causes.

Acrophobic disorder can be either congenital or due to all sorts of negative circumstances from a long or recent past. This phobia is completely unrelated to the height. Quite often acrophobia can appear in impressionable subjects with a rich imagination, therefore children are often subject to it.

Some of these patients may experience a fear of heights even in sleep. Another interesting fact is that Acrophobia can cause great anxiety and an attack of obsessive fear, even if you are not at height.

Many professional psychologists agree that any real phobia is determined by the presence of any negative experience in a person experienced in the past. However, recent research in the field of psychology refutes this theory. Many of the people in their past did not have the slightest prerequisite for acrophobia. Acrophobia is a disease that may already be present in an individual from birth. Sometimes it is combined with intolerance to loud, harsh sounds — psychologists haven’t yet been able to identify the reasons for this pattern.

In turn, some modern scholars argue that acrophobia is a prehistoric phenomenon. Our ancestors were very likely to fall from a height and break when they lived in the wild and fought for survival with other individuals. Thus, acrophobia is rooted in evolutionary mechanisms, for ancient people it was necessary for their own safety.

Studies of this disorder conducted by scientists prove that acrophobia is characteristic not only of humans. It can be found in all species of animals with good vision. Sometimes, among the reasons for the emergence of acrophobia, a poorly developed human vestibular apparatus is distinguished, because it is he who regulates the balance of body position in space, and also provides a constant connection between our vision and brain through the cerebellum. In this way, today, among psychologists there is no single theory of the appearance of acrophobia.

Symptoms of acrophobia are very variable: for this disorder are characterized both psychological manifestations of fear of falling from a height, and psychosomatics.Obsessive fear of the height of each patient may manifest itself in different ways. Often, people exposed to acrophobia say that they are unable to control their actions, thoughts, decisions, and possible actions while they are at altitudes. An extreme situation for an acrophobe gives rise to a real panic. Along with this, a sick person may have a desire to jump.

An acrophobe that is dizzy, which can be combined with nausea, sometimes it turns into vomiting. Often at the physiological level, problems with the gastrointestinal tract, such as diarrhea, appear. Breathing at the time of panic becomes very uneven and rapid, and the pulse can both slow down and quicken. With fear in many sweating increases, pain in the heart is felt, cramps, and the pupils expand unwittingly.

Sometimes in patients with this phobia, an obvious hypertonicity of the muscles is also noticeable, motor activity increases, which is visible from the side - these are scattered movements with which the acrophobe tries to escape from danger. Such behavior at height is really dangerous for a person.

In some situations, when fear and obsessive anxiety manifest themselves systematically, it would be most logical to turn to specialists. A phobia without a doctor’s control can develop further and can become a serious problem that will spoil the patient’s quality of life every day. In a patient suffering from acrophobia in advanced stages, freedom of movement is significantly limited, his lifestyle changes.

It is possible to overcome a phobia in the early stages independently. In order to overcome fear, the patient must have sufficient willpower and enlist the support of close friends and relatives. Overcoming a phobia can be relatively quick or long, depending on the individual situation. In difficult cases, it is better to treat acrophobia under the supervision of a doctor - a psychologist or psychotherapist.

Recommendations will depend on the causes of acrophobia and the degree of neglect of the disease. Sometimes it is proposed to speak out your fears or to draw them in order to throw out emotions and to defeat a phobia, and they also engage with patients in group therapy. Hypnosis is often used. - such techniques allow you to quickly get rid of phobias at any age. In difficult cases, you can cure a phobia with drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist.

You can contribute to the treatment yourself. For example, It will be useful to train the vestibular apparatus, for this perfect gymnastics. Experts also find yoga, meditation and breathing exercises to be extremely helpful. - so you will calm down, relieve stress and learn to control yourself. Try to give meditation a few minutes a day, and when there is a panic, think about proper breathing.

Other relaxation methods will also be effective, for example, massage. You can also drink herbal infusions to calm, to ensure proper nutrition, to limit alcohol intake. Escape from the phobia will help creativity, interesting work, sports and pleasant pastime with loved ones.