Assignment

 What is fear?
 What are its causes?
 What are the types of fears?
 Suggest some remedies to cure fear?

Submitted to:
Miss Saba Yaseen
Date: 10th jan 2011
Submitted By:
Group:2
Anum Nasik- 01
Hira Elahi- 03
Aasma Habib- 27
Sabiha Akram- 35
Assignment:
What is fear?
Definition:

The word fear has its roots in an old English word that means calamity, threat. So the emotions
felt in the presence of a calamity or danger is fear. Fear is a form of apprehension and anxiety. It is
a basic survival mechanism occuring in response to a specific stimulus such as pain or danger.

According to J.A Froude:

“Fear is the parent of cruelty”

Fear is a sudden usual momentary. Emotions play an important role in our daily lives. Fear is such
an emotion that is pre-programmable in all human beings and animals. When a person
experiences fear, certain areas in their brain, such as amygdala and hypothalamus are
immediately activated and appears to control the first physical response to fear.

Chemical reactions such as adrenaline and the stress hormone cortisol are released into the
blood stream causing some physical reactions like rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure,
tightening of muscles, sharpened or redirected senses, dilation of the pupils, and increased
sweating.

Fear can be described with different terms in relation to the degree of fear that is experienced.
Fear is related to number of additional cognitive and emotional state including worry, anxiety,
terror, horror, panic, and dread.

Causes of fear:

Anything can be a reason for fear as reasons vary from person to person. Most civilized people are
afraid of unknown and sometimes poor experiences and observational learning lead to fear. Fears
can also be acquired by a frightening traumatic accidents , e.g if a child falls into a well and
struggle to get out. He may develop fear of wells or heights.

Similarly, if a person don’t know swimming, drowned in the water and struggles to get out of the
water. He may develop fear of water (hydrophobia)
Two main categories:

Fear can be widely classified into two categories

1. External fear
2. Internal fear

External fear: is caused by something outside of you which you are strongly motivated to avoid.
For example, fear of spiders

Internal fear: is something inside of you that you link or create some negative emotion. For
example, fear developed out of low self esteem.

Phobia:
Phobia is an irrational and unreal fear. A phobic person knows that his fear is irrational but still
he cannot control his fears.There are numerous types of phobias. Some of them are as follows

1. Hemaphobia : fear of blood

2. Testophobia : fear of exams
3. Arsonphobia : fear of fire
4. Hypsiphobia : fear of height
5. Demophobia : fear of crowd
6. There is also one of the important type of fear called “Stage fear”. Most of the people face
stage fear that is fear of speaking in front of people or group.

Remedies:

Fear becomes a problem that needs to be addressed when it turns into anxiety, panic, or phobias.
There cures are available in homeopathic and herbal treatments. Phobias can also be overcome by
medication, cognitive behavior therapy and talk therapy.

Biological therapies:

Biological therapists refer sedatives, tranquilizers, and barbituartes like valium and xanum to
overcome the fear and anxiety. These medications are helpful for temporary cures.

Cognitive behavior therapy:

Cognitive and behavorial therapist work together to cure phobias and fears. They expose the
patients to fearsome circumstances to reduce the intensity of fears day-by-day.

Psychodynamic Therapies:

They use dream analysis to find the causes of fear. It’s a long term process that helps the patients
by going into their unconscious mind to cure phobias.
Conclusion:

In the summing up, we would write we all experience fear. It’s a mechanism for survival.
It prepares us for the unpredictable. A mild form of fear is completely normal but if it
touches the extremes, it needs attention. Our fears are only in our minds. It’s better to
control fears before they control us.