A fear is an unpleasant reaction we feel when confronted with real danger… it is an essential 'fight or flight' instinct, which makes us prepare to either run away from that danger, or stick around and fight it out.

A phobia on the other hand (while still a very strong and unpleasant reaction), is an irrational fear which has been ‘symbolically attached’ to an object, or situation, which causes little or no real danger.

There will usually be strong avoidance behaviour connected with the phobia, which will run alongside intense feelings of anxiety, loss of control and panic. Sometimes, confrontation with the phobia, can even lead to fainting, but this is usually only associated with blood, injury, or needle-type phobias.

Specific phobias can be categorised into six main types:

Animal: such as rats/mice, spiders, insects, snakes, flying creatures, dogs, cats and reptiles.

Natural Environment: such as water, thunderstorms, heights, fire, and the dark.

Blood / Injury /Needles: such as injections, the sight of blood, dentistry, surgical operations, or other medical procedures.

Enviromental: such as flying, lifts, driving, tunnels, bridges, or enclosed spaces (claustrophobia). These fears relate to a fear of being trapped and unable to get away.

Other: such as illness, germs, choking, vomiting.

Unusual: Some phobias can be bizarre (although by no means unique) Buttons, crisp packets, calculators - to name just a few.

As well as the specific phobias, there are also the complex phobias of social phobia / social anxiety, and agoraphobia (the fear of open spaces). These can also be very distressing and debilitating, in a wide range of situations.

Phobias are often caused in childhood, where the child experiences a real fear,and makes a lasting, irrational and unhelpful pattern match to the thing

Sometimes, phobias can develop after experiencing something. The initial sensitising event, or triggering incident, may vary from witnessing, for example, an accident, visiting the dentist's office, or even just hearing about terrible disasters.

Or, a child may learn a behaviour and if unhelpful, this can cause the child to become phobic as well.

An example of this, would be a child who became terrified of spiders, simply because the mother was frightened of them and acted in a terrified manner and screamed etc.The child would quickly have picked up on the mother's fear, absorbed and formed a learned behaviour pattern, and thus developed a conditioned response.