Claustrophobia

Claustrophobia is one of a set of psychological or behavioral disorders known as simple phobias. Simple phobias involve persistent fear of a circumscribed stimulus other than the fear of having a panic attack (such as is found in a panic disorder) or of humiliation or embarrassment in social situations (as is seen in social phobia). The most common phobias involve fear of animals, particularly dogs, snakes, insects, and mice, while other common phobias involve closed spaces (claustrophobia) or heights (acrophobia). Phobic persons always recognize that their fears are irrational or unrealistic but are unable to control their reaction. Simple phobias are best treated with behavioral therapy, and drugs alone are not effective (Kline, 1996).

Prince (1993) notes that culture is a universal feature of the human environment (Prince, 1993, 55), and he then discusses various culture-bound syndromes that may develop. Many of the syndromes we describe in Western psychiatry are culture-bound and not universal as we might expect if we did not do cultural comparisons. The concept of the phobia, for instance, is a culture-bound issue. Prince notes that Freud had separated some common phobias of things feared by most Westerners to some extent (death, illness, and snakes, for example) from specific phobias of things or situations inspiring no fear in the average Westerner, such as fear of public places. In Japan and Korea, social phobias are separated from agoraphobia and the hos

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d post-traumatic stress disorder. There has been renewed interest in cognitive behavioral therapies used alone or with medications. classic, insight-oriented, dynamic psychotherapy has yielded poor results in treating the symptoms of panic disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder. A wide range of medications is used to treat panic disorder, but there is a high rate of relapse within six to twelve months of their discontinuation. The most important advance has been in the use of serotininergic agents in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (Michels and Marzuk, 1993a,b). Claustrophobia is one example of agoraphobia, a set of phobic responses that are themselves examples of anxiety disorder. The general public has often misunderstood the nature of such problems, as is noted by a representative of the National Institute of Mental Health: "Many of the 23 million Americans with anxiety disorders continue to suffer because of stigma and the widespread lack of understanding that these are brain disorders, as responsive to treatment as other medical disorders," Dr. Steven Hyman, director of the NIMH, told the news conference. "Science destigmatizes. Once you know that thoughts and emotional disorders are parts of the br

Category: Psychology - C