It is common to confuse phobia and fear. Although they seem somewhat similar, they actually have less things in common. We tell you some of the main ones.
Fear and nature
Fear is something natural in the human being. Fear is an emotion that helps us in our personal lives to know what to do in situations that represent danger. The human species, but also other animals, have developed this faculty as Defense mechanism in the face of hostility and as a means of protection and alert to know when to run away either walk away of a situation where their lives may be at risk.
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However, it is possible that, when faced with a dangerous situation, our response is extreme either unbridled. When this happens is when we can talk about “phobia”.
Phobia and fear are often confused, but they are two things radically different. Fear is an emotion that It is expressed when exposed to a threatening event or situation that may entail a real danger, and serves, as mentioned, to protect the individual against said threat. The phobia, on the other hand, It is an exacerbated behavior when faced with something that does not represent a real danger and so many times, Instead of helping, it is detrimental to one’s well-being.
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Phobia vs. fear
Below we present some key differences between one and the other:
- Physiology: mild or strong fear manifests physiological signs as tremors, sweating, acceleration of the heart rate and other. These same signs occur in phobias but in an extreme waycausing great damage to the body, intense headache, dizziness, vomiting, faintingamong others.
- Reaction management: When faced with fear, human beings react with a tendency towards natural survival, therefore, they can generally respond quickly to the situation to guarantee their well-being. In general, unless there is some psychological pathologypeople they have control over their emotions, including fear. In the case of phobia, this is not the case. During a phobic episode, there is a great inability to control and the intensity of the reaction prevents the reasoning that does occur, to a greater or lesser extent, during fear.
- Disproportion: In a phobia, contrary to what happens in the case of a normal fear, the response that occurs is radically disproportionate. Although we all fear something, the person who suffers from a phobia is completely unable to moderate the reaction against what causes it even if it does not represent any real danger to your life or integrity.
- Fear of fear: One of the biggest distinctions between natural or normal fear and phobia is that the fear originates in a situation that may represent danger, while the phobia, in addition to appearing when you interact with what causes it, can also cause strong reactions when remembering what causes the phobia. That is to say, The memory of the phobia also causes emotional alterations.
- Anxious pathology: Phobia, unlike normal fear, is considered a form of pathology associated with anxiety. The reality evaluation component weighs little in the phobiawhile yes it has a totally relevant weight in fear.
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