From Trauma To Phobia: Overcome Your Deepest Fears

Within the classifications of psychological problems, phobias make up a heterogeneous set. A good health professional must always be well trained in its recognition and treatment, since a large number of people will come to your consultation for some type of phobia.

This implies, I consider it of vital importance, to recognize that the origins of phobias are complex and diverse. If we are not flexible and do not use different approaches depending on the problems shown by the person who comes to therapy presenting one (or more) phobias, their treatment may fail and end up prolonging their suffering.

With this, I begin a series of articles in which I am going to make a classification of different types of phobias, but not according to the phobic object, as is usually the case, but according to its origin. I find this understanding of the underlying cause of a phobia more important and helpful than knowing whether the person has an aversion to bird feathers or heights.

When trauma causes a phobia

The first case that I would like to analyze is that of those phobias that hide an underlying emotional problem, since they are those that obtain the worst results with the traditional treatments taught in the schools of Psychology.

In the type that concerns us, a progressive exposure to the phobic object (traditional treatment) can help the person to lose the fear and anguish they felt before, however, if the emotional origin that fed the phobia is not addressed , it is likely that, after some time, the person will present a new phobia. The origin of this new phobia, which has not been worked on, will remain the same, however its phobic manifestation will have mutated.

We have to understand that for these people, the phobia represents an escape valve through which they allow themselves to express the repressed emotions caused by the true trauma (which remains hidden). Perhaps the emotions of the past were unauthorized or had to be hidden and silenced.

However, even unconsciously, emotions, also hidden ones, are always present, affect us, and can even make us sick. In the case at hand, the mind looks for a way to unleash those emotions through phobia.

Perhaps, that child who was bitten by a dog, at that moment, everyone told him that he could not cry because crying is not for men and, in this way, they forced him to repress his suffering and pain. But if his pain and fear were so strong that they could not be locked away, perhaps the little one projected these emotions in a detail like the black color of the dog that bit him. Decades later, the adult may no longer remember the dramatic episode, however, they will still not be able to wear any black clothing.

Imagine another case in which a girl is abused by her parents. Regardless of his actions, he receives daily shouts, threats and even the occasional blow.

The girl knows that this treatment is unfair, but she cannot do anything to defend herself, not even protest. On the other hand, her family, the priest of the church and the whole of society, instill in her the idea that she should love her parents who make so many efforts for her. Also, if she dares to make the slightest complaint, they label her ungrateful.

His frustration, his anger and his feeling of injustice cannot be expressed and, perhaps, years later, like Bethlehem, he will develop a phobia of clowns because at some point he associated his parents with these characters and could, thus, allow himself to express all that that he had to shut up.

How to treat phobias according to their origin

In all these cases, as you can imagine, if we force the person to get closer to their phobic object and lose their fear of it, we will be depriving them of the mechanism that helped them to relieve the emotional pressure they felt inside. And again, just like it did in the past, your mind will once again search for a way to discharge those harmful emotions, this time creating a different phobia.

Therapeutic work with these people should not focus on the object of their phobia, but rather work on the original trauma that caused it. Through the emotions of anguish and fear, we will be able to go back in time to reach the real source of their pain and understand what the child experienced in the past. Then, in therapy, you will be able to allow yourself to express all the repressed emotions and put each one in its place. The phobia will subside, it will no longer be necessary to drain any pain because the original pain will be healed.

Belén, the girl with a phobia of clowns, was able to forget this fear during her treatment, when she was able to scream and discharge all the pain and injustice that she had suffered as a child. By relocating her emotions, her body no longer needed to search for an alternative way to express the original pain.