Claustrophobia. Agoraphobia. Triskaidekaphobia. All of these names have one thing in common: they add mystery and confusion to what is already one of the least understood aspects of human behavior.
Phobias have always been classified according to their obvious triggers; objects or situations that cause fear. These triggers are often dressed up in exotic Greek and Latin labels, giving each phobia a more scientific feel.
Unfortunately, the traditional phobic classification system has shed little light on the real, but hidden, mechanisms responsible for creating and shaping phobic behavior. In fact, these Greek and Latin insults may have done a lot of damage.
Because instead of encouraging us to search for underlying common denominators capable of unlocking the many secrets of phobic behavior, it has led many to believe that these secrets are already known.
Worse yet, this classification system has inadvertently led many of the doctors to believe that each and every type of phobia i.e. xenophobia, aerophobia, etc. it is a separate and distinct disorder with a single cause that is unrelated to other phobias apart from the obvious similarity in symptoms.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The drawbacks of the traditional classification system are best illustrated with a few examples.
Suppose a woman is cynophobic and agoraphobic. What do these two labels tell us, apart from the fact that she is afraid of dogs and open spaces?
According to the current classification system, this woman suffers from two separate phobic diseases, each of which requires individual treatment. But what if her fear of her dogs stems from a realistic fear of being chased by a dog in an open space, namely the street (realistic, because it has happened to her). If so, her fear of her dogs is clearly part and parcel of her fear of open spaces. The two are not separate disorders.
The connection between this woman’s agoraphobia and her gynophobia is vital to receiving proper treatment. But the traditional classification system does not encourage clinicians to look for such interrelationships. Let’s look at another example.
Fear to fly:
Four men suffer from aerophobia, the fear of flying. Although all four men are classified as having the same disease, closer examination could reveal that each fears flying for an entirely different reason.
A man, for example, may be afraid to fly because his neighbor recently died in a plane crash. Another may be afraid because planes fly over water and he can’t swim, so he is not afraid of flying, just flying over water. The third may be afraid of small enclosed spaces, such as an airplane cabin. And the fourth man may be afraid of heights.
Each of these possibilities suggests something entirely different about the mechanisms responsible for the fear of flying. More importantly, these differences clearly demonstrate that each case may require a different treatment approach.
But once we label the four men “aerophobes,” we inadvertently make a tragic mistake. Because our label implies that a common mechanism is responsible for the fears of all four men. This makes no more sense than assuming that four men with the same name have the same mother. However, in essence, this is exactly what we are doing.
This kind of mistake can only encourage doctors and other therapists to look in all the wrong directions for answers. Worse yet, he encourages them to put all four men through the same treatment regimen. At best, the results of this type of treatment approach will be less than satisfactory for at least three of the four.
Two glitches in the system:
These examples clearly illustrate that two important features of phobic behavior are masked by our traditional classification system:
o Phobias of different names may have the same underlying mechanism.
o Phobias of the same name may have clearly different underlying mechanisms.
Superficial phobic triggers provide an important clue to understanding phobic behavior, but they are only one aspect of the highly complex phobic phenomenon.
By focusing only on these triggers, we are ignoring the much more important underlying mechanisms that create and shape phobic behavior. This interferes with our ability to make an accurate diagnosis and prevents us from developing a successful treatment approach.