Advising a person with a phobia

Advising a person with a phobia
A phobia is when a person experiences fear, often panic attacks, in specific situations and begins to avoid
them.
• Teach people with phobias that the way of overcoming their fear is to expose themselves to the
situation until the fear subsides. In this way they can become confident that there is nothing to fear about
the situation.
• Explain that avoiding the situation only makes the fear worse. Exposure to the fearful situation must be
done consistently to build up confidence and overcome the phobia. They can be taught to deal with the
fear during exposure by breathing exercises and by reassuring themselves that the fear is temporary.
• Identify the situations that lead to fear and then grade these situations in a list from the least fearful to the most fearful.
• Expose the person in steps starting from the less fearful situations; once she has mastered this situation
and can face it with no fear, encourage her to move to the next situation. For example, a housebound
person could be encouraged to take a short walk to a neighbour’s home as the first step. This step is
practised daily until no more fear is experienced. She must not leave the situation under any circumstances.
After overcoming this fear, she should move on to the next step, which could be walking further, say to the post office. Finally, she will need to walk to the marketplace.