Categories of Phobia

Phobia is termed as an irrational fear of a specific object or activity. There are many strange, common, unusual, funny and weird phobias that most of us develop during childhood or late adolescence.

Psychiatry divides the various different kinds of phobias into three different categories :

Agoraphobia :
This is the fear of public places and open spaces. This is the most common of all phobias and often leads to panic attacks. People with this fear avoid crowded places such as malls, theaters and parties.

Social Phobia : This is the fear of social situations that often leads to anxiety. People with this fear easily interact with close friends and relatives but when it comes to strangers they tend to develop a fear of embarrassment and uneasiness. As a result they avoid social gatherings and meeting new people.

Simple Phobia : Also called specific phobia is the fear of specific objects, situations or activities. Specific phobia is further subdivided to environmental fear, animal fear, situational fear and medical fear. Other phobias under simple phobias are fear of cooking, fear of injury, fear of death and fear of clowns. These are very common fears that are usually developed during the early formative years of childhood or at adolescence. Some of them go away as the child grows but some last till death.