Concept and What is: Claustrophobia | Psychology

The claustrophobia is a phobia, i.e., an exaggerated fear before a situation. In this case, is the fear or repugnance for enclosed spaces such as elevators, trains, planes and many others. It can also be present when the patient is surrounded by a crowd. In fact, the claustrophobia isn't a disease, but a symptom, usually accompanied by a disorder known as agoraphobia-fear of being in a public place, where the individual cannot get out easily if you feel bad.

Typically this signal precedes situations that may involve the triggering a panic attack. The sensations from the psychic level and reach the physical. The environment seems to compress, the ceiling comes near, the walls contract, legs and hands tremble, sweat starts flowing and the heart is more like a bomb waiting to explode. The mouth becomes dry, and all the symptoms of a panic disorder may be present. This unprecedented distress is very common and does not distinguish between race, gender, age or social class. A fear without reason invades the mind of these patients, who often suffer from an anxiety exacerbated.

Even a few seconds in front of a claustrophobic context is enough to trigger a complex of symptoms in victims of this disorder. They begin to avoid these situations, considered by them as risk. It is difficult to assess what the causes of this problem, because they can be multiple. According to some researchers, those who suffer from any kind of anxiety have a greater tendency to present this disorder, because any experience of trauma in an enclosed space can be the initial stimulus to develop these people this kind of phobia. Other scholars see this disruption an expression of sexual impulses and repressed guilt.

You must also understand the ease with which these patients acquire a depression, because they isolate people and places that can generate claustrophobic contexts because they dominate by fear, gathering up the places where feel safer. It is essential, therefore, to treat this disorder, so that it doesn't worsen and evolve into other psychic diseases. In this sense, it is important to combine psychotherapy to psychiatry. The anxiolytics and antidepressants are the most suitable pharmacological categories in this treatment, because they help to inhibit serotonin, responsible for anxiety, although the patient still run the risk of being again invaded by fear as soon as they stop taking the drugs. That's where comes in psychotherapy, aiming to restructure the mind, identifying fears and work the irrational aspects of each one of them. Complete healing is thus something real and tangible.

Both the claustrophobic as their families must learn to accept this reality, before attempting to turn it. Only then will it be possible to eliminate once these uncomfortable effects of everyday life often overwhelming of our civilisation. Self-knowledge and understanding of yourself can help the patient get rid of this and other phobias.
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