This treatment uses well-known behavioral principles of which some are described below. What is generally defined as a phobia is an intense and irrational fear of some entity like an object, situation or activity. Phobias are often divided into the categories specific phobias and social phobias or social anxiety disorder. The specific phobias are chiefly without an intricate social component and can be an intense fear of animals like spiders, rodents, cats, dogs, birds, or objects like needles, blood, dirt, or situations like heights, enclosed places, flying, or darkness.
Social phobia is mainly a terror of becoming humiliated in situations that include other people.
A severe scrutiny from other people is often imagined. Agoraphobia is characterized by a marked anxiety or distress of leaving home, being in public places, or other feared situations. It may be combined with panic attacks, and a fear of the panic attacks themselves. What is dealt with on this site is exclusively the specific phobias. If the disorder appears in childhood it usually disappears on its own, but if it starts in adolescence or adulthood some treatment is usually needed to make it go away.