Running dangerously late for class early one Monday morning, Tatiana Vardanyan, a third-year psychology student, began running toward Franz Hall when she came to a sudden, heart-stopping halt.
She said she noticed a student standing by with a small dog on a leash and her heart began to race. With sweat flooding her body, she instantly changed course, and instead of continuing toward Franz, Vardanyan decided to take a longer route.
Vardanyan said she opted to be late to class rather than walk in the vicinity of the animal because of her zoophobia, the fear of animals.
“I would rather lose an arm than be touched by an animal,” Vardanyan recalled thinking at the time.
All phobias are excessive and irrational fears that can develop through experiencing a traumatic event or even by watching someone else experience some trauma.
These fears can become severe if left untreated and have the highest prevalence rate of any disorder, said Dr. Raphael Rose, an assistant research psychologist at UCLA.
Rose treats patients with a variety of fears, of which he said the fear of animals, insects and social situations are the most highly represented in all populations, including students, he added.
Of all the phobias, the fear of public speaking tops the list, scoring higher than the fear of death for many students, Rose said.
This common phobia is highly treatable, as are all anxiety disorders and phobias, but as is the case with most fear disorders, people are hesitant to seek help, Rose said.
“They are usually unwilling to admit that they have a fear at all,” he added.
In group therapy sessions, Rose has treated patients with a fear of public speaking by attempting to desensitize them to the anxiety-provoking situation they have created in their minds.
“I put these people into a group together and have them perform speeches,” Rose said, adding that enough exposure to the high-anxiety situation they have been avoiding eventually causes them to habituate to it.
Another tool for treatment is utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy, which adjusts negative thinking patterns and has been an effective tool in treating most disorders.
“It puts the patient into the frame of mind that allows them to face their fear,” said Dr. Kenneth Mazey, clinical psychologist and cofounder of the Dental Fear and Anxiety Center at UCLA, about cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. Elizabeth Gong-Guy, clinical director of Student Psychological Services, said this form of therapy can change certain predisposed brain structures of fear patients, creating an 80 to 90 percent success rate in full treatment of the disorder. It changes the predominance of certain neurotransmitters in the brain by changing bad thought habits, she added.
When cognitive functions are treated, these public-speaking phobia patients are able to speak in front of an audience, indistinguishable from people without the phobia.
“It is never a skill problem with these patients ““ it is the fear of public scrutiny,” Rose said, adding that this social fear is evolutionarily traceable to our early ancestors who were dependent on acceptance from their social groups to survive.
But though fear can feel like a negative and debilitating emotion, it is one of the most important ones we have, Rose said.
Emeran Mayer, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, said some of the most primitive creatures on Earth possess fear as a mechanism of avoiding damage.
“It is the over-exaggeration of certain natural fears that puts humans at risk for developing phobias,” Mayer added.
For example, many people fear the dentist but they still pay their annual visit. Someone with a developed dental phobia will avoid the dentist altogether and may suffer great consequences to their health, Mazey said.
“The only time these patients will see a dentist is when they have an emergency,” he added.
The problem with these irrational fears, Rose said, is that they can be born in a variety of ways, some of which do not require firsthand experience. They can develop directly or vicariously, through seeing someone else go through a traumatic event, Rose said.
This was massively observed in the U.S. in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when a society-wide fear of flying in airplanes developed, Rose said. Fears can also develop through simply hearing information, such as by watching a movie.
Even though fears can be strong and general to many situations, all fears are highly treatable, and help should be sought out to prevent the problem from escalating to a more serious illness, Rose said.
It is important to seek out treatment when the problem is not yet boiling over, Gong-Guy said.
“Most students who come in have an average of four sessions to solve their problems.”
Anxiety and fear are part of every person’s life, but when they become pervasive and cause significant amounts of distress, they must be tackled early on, Rose said.
Fear is necessary for survival, but avoidance must be avoided and fear itself should never be feared, he added.