Scientists are unsure of why or how phobias develop. The onset of a phobia may be tied to a traumatic event, but often there is no such trigger, or the cause is subtle. "If you are a child walking down the street holding your mom's hand and hear a dog bark and then feel a little squeeze of your hand, you may develop this fear of dogs," says Dr. Wilson, "You make a conditioned response, an association, between that dog barking and a little signal from your mom that there's some danger there."
Additionally, the same event may happen to many people and only one will develop an extreme fear. Sometimes the terrible event doesn't even need to be experienced directly to develop into a phobia. For instance, people can develop a fear of flying, aviophobia, simply from seeing the video footage of a plane crash on the news.
Most people with a phobia will simply do what they can to avoid the situation they dread. For example, a person with galeophobia, a fear of sharks, can avoid beaches and aquariums. But a person who has a fear of dogs, cynophobia, may not be able to leave their house, afraid that a neighbor will be walking his dog at the same time. Most of the time, it is when a fear has seriously disrupted one's way of life that he or she seeks help.
Forgetting Your Fears
The most common treatment used to help one shed a specific fear is called cognitive-behavioral therapy. Its goal is to change the way a person thinks about a feared situation to allow the person to face the fear.
