How Common Is a Fear of Animals?

Animal phobias often start in childhood and manifest as fear of snakes, spiders, rabbits, cats, dogs, etc. Those with mild symptoms will have emotional tension, and those with more severe symptoms will have obvious avoidance behaviors. For example, patients who are afraid of bats do not dare to go out at night; in general, the symptoms of most early-onset animal phobias will continue into adulthood, and the disease course often lasts for decades at the time of consultation, but there are also Some people with animal phobia will naturally relieve their symptoms after entering adulthood. ^[1]

Animal phobia

Animal phobias often start in childhood and manifest as fear of snakes, spiders, rabbits, cats, dogs, etc. Those with mild symptoms will have emotional tension, and those with more severe symptoms will have obvious avoidance behaviors. For example, patients who are afraid of bats do not dare to go out at night; in general, the symptoms of most early-onset animal phobias will continue into adulthood, and the disease course often lasts for decades at the time of consultation, but there are also Some people with animal phobia will naturally relieve their symptoms after entering adulthood. ^[1]

1. Strong fear caused by a certain object;

2. Try to avoid the feared object or situation, which is especially obvious in some patients with animal phobia;

3. Anticipatory anxiety is the anxiety that appears just before the object of fear;

4. The patient knows the fear and avoidance behavior is excessive, unreasonable and unnecessary, but cannot be controlled;

5. Fear is often accompanied by autonomic symptoms such as palpitations or palpitation, sweating, tremors or trembling, dry mouth, difficulty breathing, chest pain or chest discomfort, nausea or abdominal discomfort, dizziness or unstable standing, chills or hot flashes, needles Tingling or numbness;

6. Fear and avoidance of certain objects bring obvious mental pain to patients, or hinder their normal social functions in work, study, life and social affairs. ^[1]

Some people only have severe rejection of fear from animals. However, most people classify such people as timid. In fact, this is a kind of pathological phobia. The fear of animals is different from that of ordinary phobia patients. Patients are often prone to fantasies and hallucinations, and their imagination is beyond ordinary people. Any animal approaching or contacting him will have a strong sense of rejection, and in severe cases, there will be mental breakdown. ^[2]

Psychoanalysts believe that phobia is mainly an outstanding childhood Oedipus complex

People with animal phobia should try to avoid contact with pets. If you want to overcome fear, you can actually try "system desensitization" to reduce this fear. You can first look at photos or videos of these little animals. Secondly, you can look at these little animals from a distance and do not approach yourself. Then, approach the small animal under control, don't rush, it is better to do it when someone is nearby. You can also try to touch them yourself while they are in control. ^[1]

The treatment of animal phobia mainly includes drug treatment and psychological treatment. Drug treatment includes anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants. The effect is mainly to relieve anxiety and depression of patients.

Psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic traditional treatments have definite effects on various types of phobias, but because of their long course of treatment, high cost, and difficult to master techniques, they are rarely used in the treatment of phobias.

Behavior therapy

The most important methods for treating phobias are systemic desensitization, exposure or impact therapy, muscle relaxation training and so on. In addition, cognitive therapy and hypnosis therapy can be used for the treatment of phobia. After treatment, the symptoms of fear will improve significantly.

Cognitive therapy

Help patients build confidence in treatment, analyze the feared object, and point out that the cause of their fear is due to lack of cognitive reflection. To overcome animal phobias, you must first have a prophet. We need to help them discover the source of "afraid", understand the content of "afraid", calculate the degree of "afraid", and measure the probability of "afraid". Only in this way can the patient correctly evaluate his position in the environment. This method can also be called "personal positioning method".

Desensitization therapy

This is considered the safest and most effective behavioral treatment for phobias. In this method, the doctor sets the "step" fear value, and exposes the patient to the things and places that cause the fear in a step-by-step manner, so that the patient's senses are gradually stimulated, and the degree of fear of the stimulus is gradually reduced. The symptoms disappeared completely. Systemic desensitization is relatively mild and easy to accept for patients. The disadvantage is that the treatment time is long and the effect is slow. Xiamen effective treatment of phobia hospital

Exposure therapy

Exposure therapy is a radical behavioral therapy. This method is based on a certain psychological counseling, which puts the patient suddenly before the fear or in the place. It makes him unable to escape, which stimulates his heart to react extremely. After the stimulus, the patient was not harmed by the substantial fear object, thereby establishing the understanding of the fear object and eliminating the fear.

Animals are our good friends, but some people feel scared and even suffer from animal phobia when they touch animals. Although animal phobia is not a difficult problem, it also affects the lives of patients, so it is urgent to treat animal phobia. ^[3]