How to Overcome Phobia in 10 Effective Steps

Table of Contents

Last Updated on March 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson

Learning how to overcome a phobia that prevents achieving goals in life or having a good quality of life is very important. If allowed to continue, it can increase in intensity and be more complicated to treat.

In the past, you may have had a great fear of an object or situation that prevented you from doing what you wanted.

How to overcome a phobia

For example, your fear of heights might prevent you from riding in an elevator. Or your fear of insects might prevent you from spending a pleasant day in the field.

Remember that if you do not treat the problem, it may result in others more serious, such as depression, addiction, family problems, work problems, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, etc.

If the phobia that you suffer is of a less serious nature, you can overcome it with the steps that I am going to expose to you next.

My advice is that any type of phobia should be treated, since a fear that at first may seem insignificant can over time grow into a disabling phobia.

10 steps to overcome a phobia.

Identify your phobia.

The first step in overcoming a phobia is to identify the object or situation you fear.

At first, this first step may seem simple, but be careful, since there is usually much confusion. For example, the person may believe that he is afraid of elevators when, in fact, what he is afraid of is remaining locked up.

Take the time you need to identify your fear, as this step is key to getting over your phobia.

Talk about what you fear.

Talking about your fears with other people has many benefits: it helps you identify your phobia, you relieve yourself, you receive advice, and you feel supported and clothed.

If your family doesn’t support you, find a therapy or support group that does.

Create a hierarchy of fears.

I am sure that, within your phobia, there are different situations that generate more or less anxiety. For example, if you are afraid of dogs, you may have a slight anxiety about seeing a dog in the distance and a serious anxiety about it.

Create a hierarchy of fearful situations and rank them by intensity. Ideally, there should be a minimum of ten situations.

At this point, what is intended to happen is that you reduce your fear into smaller fears, making it easier to face them at first.

Relax

Doing some kind of relaxation exercise can help you deal with your phobia.

This exercise can be used to visualize a pleasant scene, perform some breathing exercises, or meditate. What is important is that the exercise can be practiced at any time and discreetly.

Ideally, before exposing yourself to the dreaded object, you can do that exercise, which will help you reduce your activation level and make it easier for you to deal with it.

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At this point, you must grasp your hierarchy of fears and expose yourself to the different situations in your imagination, visualizing them progressively.

It begins with the first, that is, the least anxiety that generates, and begins to imagine you in that situation. It is normal that at first you feel some anxiety and tension, but do not worry; little by little it will decrease, and you will feel your muscles relax.

When you take a relaxed minute while imagining the first situation on your list, take a break and repeat it. When you see that you barely feel anxiety, you can move on to the next situation on your list.

This exercise should be done with all the situations in your hierarchy, and your goal is to use your imagination to lower your activation level so that, when you go to face your fears in person, you will be calmer.

Generate positive thoughts.

The thoughts you have have a great power to make you feel in one way or another. Thus, modifying thoughts that cause anxiety, insecurity, and fear may improve those emotions.

Write down your fears and turn them into positive thoughts you can say to yourself when you face your phobia.

For example, the thought “I cannot do it” can become “little by little and with effort, I can get it.”

How to Overcome Phobia in 10 Effective Steps — Phobias cause symptoms that interfere with daily life.

Point out your fears.

The time has come for you to put into practice all that you have learned in the previous steps and face in person the different situations in your hierarchy, that is, your fears.

As before, you should begin to expose yourself to your fears in a progressive way so that less anxiety is generated. Do not force yourself; there is no hurry. Slow and satisfactory exposure is preferable to rapid and inadequate exposure.

When you have exposed yourself several times to a situation and notice that anxiety and fear have dropped considerably, move on to the next.

The goal of the exhibition is to gradually tolerate the feared object, and the associated reactions of anxiety and fear are disappearing.

Have Healthy Habits

For any disorder, it is very important that your life habits are healthy.

Exercise regularly, eat healthy, rest for enough hours, and avoid the consumption of toxins. All this has repercussions for your well-being.

9.Beware of drug use.

Many doctors and psychiatrists prescribe anxiolytics and antidepressants to relieve the symptoms of some phobias.

The consumption of these drugs should only be done under medical supervision. Inappropriate use of them can cause dependence and other unwanted consequences.

10. Have patience.

To overcome a phobia, you have to have patience, since they do not disappear immediately but involve time and effort.

Depending on the severity of the phobia, the treatment can last several weeks or months. The important thing is to strive and reinforce all the achievements that one is making.

With patience, effort, and desire, you can overcome all your fears.

What is a phobia?

A phobia is an anxiety disorder that consists of an intense, disproportionate, and persistent fear of the presence or anticipation of an object, animal, or situation that poses little or no real danger to the affected person.

The person who has a phobia is aware of his situation, i.e., he knows that his fear is excessive and irrational, which has no logic, but still cannot help feeling that intense fear when it encounters the object or the dreaded situation.

The severity of the phobias can vary. Therefore, in some people it generates a slight uneasiness, while in others the emotional reaction is of such intensity that it generates a great feeling of fear, anxiety crises, and even panic attacks.

These emotional reactions can be triggered by the mere presence or the mere imagination of what is feared.

For this reason, people with phobias try to avoid at all costs what causes them fear. However,if this is not possible and they have to face what they fear, they do so with a lot of fear, discomfort, and anxiety.

The avoidance of phobic stimuli interferes greatly with the quality of life of the affected person.

In the end, the avoidance of the dreaded stimulus ends up impacting work activity, family relationships, couples, friends, etc.

This disorder affects a large percentage of the population. Experts point out that approximately one in twenty people has some kind of phobia.

Phobias are more common in women than in men.

Types of phobias

People can develop phobias towards anything and any situation, so if I listed all types of phobias, the list would never end, which is why I will cite a few.

There are certain phobias that are more common than others among the population, such as:

Acrophobia: fear of heights
Aerophobia: Fear of flying by plane
Agoraphobia: fear of open spaces
Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders.
Astraphobia: fear of storms
Gynophobia: fear of dogs
Claustrophobia: fear of enclosed spaces
Dysmorphophobia: fear of physical deformity
Entomophobia is the fear of insects.
Social phobia: fear of social situations and interactions
Glosofobia: fear of public speaking.
Hematophobia: fear of blood
Nictophobia: fear of the dark.
Monophobia: fear of getting sick
Ofidophobia: fear of snakes
Trypanophobia: fear of needles and injections
Etc.

There are also many others that are less common but more striking, such as:

Anthropophobia is the fear of people.
Self-phobia: fear of being alone
Carcinofobia: fear of having cancer
Cataglophobia: fear of being ridiculous.
Cleptophobia: fear of being trapped
Coulrophobia: fear of clowns
Dentofobia: fear of going to the dentist
Emetophobia: fear of vomiting
Spectrophobia: fear of specters and ghosts
Misophobia is the fear of dirt and germs.
Necrophilia: fear of death
Hydrophobia: fear of fire
Tafophobia: fear of being buried alive.
Etc.

Most likely, you identify a family member, friend, or even yourself with one of the phobias I just named, and it is more frequent than

You can imagine.

I must emphasize that there is another group of phobias that are not characterized by the intense fear they generate, if not by a feeling of hatred, rejection, and

disapproval towards a certain group, as is the case with homophobia and xenophobia.

How do phobias arise?

Phobias arise in childhood and adolescence and tend to stay into adulthood.

They can be acquired in various ways, for example, by observing other phobic people, as with children who develop the same phobias as their parents or close relatives.

Through the association of unpleasant emotions with the object or situation to which you are relating at that time. An example might be, you might feel anxiety and fear after being locked in an elevator.

For the paternal overprotection along with the reinforcement of the fears. For example, parents who do not allow their child to approach any dog and reinforce this when the child avoids contact with these animals

Or by the experience of a traumatic situation. The person lives through a situation that is traumatic for her, and from that moment on, she develops a phobia related to what happened.

This way, you can be afraid of the spiders because your mother has them, afraid of the elevators because you were locked in one, afraid of the dogs because this is how it has been transmitted to you by your parents, and afraid to drive after having a car accident.

As you can see, phobias are acquired through learning, which means that they can be overcome, as we will see later.

What happens when the person encounters what he fears?

As I said before, the person feels very afraid, experiences intense fear, anxiety crises, and, sometimes, panic attacks.