Comments on: Why I am afraid of the hospital

By: Aleksandra Kolanko

Aleksandra Kolanko — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:46:08 +0000

While reading about anxiety disorders in our psychology textbook, I thought the section that explained the development of fears in terms of biology was particularly interesting. While humans seem biologically primed to fear certain things that could have posed threats to their ancestors, such as snakes or heights, people tend not to learn fears of other things. The example used was how during World War II air raids didn’t produce lasting phobias, as if evolution didn’t prepare people to be scared of bombs falling from the sky, since our ancestors, with more limited technology, didn’t face such threats in the past. In the case of this author, it definitely seems as though the phobia has an evolutionary component to it. ‘“I’ll attach a fear to hospitals in order to steer clear of bad situations and to be safe.”’ In this way, the she can increase her chances of survival by staying away from a situation that she perceives to be life threatening. However, like with most issues in psychology, the causes of phobias seem to be a combination of many factors that can be explained through various psychological perspectives, not just biology. Learning, for example, does seem to play a role here in the development of her fear; although it doesn’t seem to be the result of classical conditioning like that of Little Albert, as she didn’t describe repeated pairings of the hospital with the panic attacks, but rather one traumatic situation brought about the association. So if that single bad experience had such a big impact on the development of a fear, are we more prone to acquiring phobias than we think?

By: Cecilia Solis

Cecilia Solis — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:15:00 +0000

While reading this post I was reminded of the example we were given in class of cancer patients who learn to associate a certain food with nausea if given to them previous to a chemotherapy session; much in the same manner that people with nosocomephobia learn to associate a negative situation with the hospital. Although the author’s case was somewhat complex I feel that, generally, one of the ways which we learn fear is through classical conditioning. More specifically fear conditioning is the method by which organisms learn to fear new stimuli, in this case being the hospital.
As I kept reading I found it really interesting that the author says that “the fear of hospitals is actually a protective mechanism for the individual because of some traumatic event in ones past that involved a hospital”. When thinking in evolutionary terms, it makes a lot of sense for individuals to learn associations that help them to adapt to their environment. Believing that the hospital is full of life-threatening situations might after all just be our brains tapping on our survival instincts.

By: Nii Yeboah

Nii Yeboah — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:50:16 +0000

I know that phobias are caused by experiencing traumatic events. For example, getting stuck in an elevator might cause Clautophobia, having a panic attack in a plane could lead to Aviophobia or having an extremely bad or near fatal incident in a hospital may cause Nosocomephobia. However, I have always wondered how other, slightly obscure phobias such as Genuphobia(fear of knees), Cathisophobia(fear of sitting) or Barophobia(fear of gravity) are developed. I can’t even begin to comprehend how they come about. For more information on phobias and their causes, check out this link, http://allpsych.com/journal/phobias.html, and for a full list of all phobias go to http://phobialist.com/.