Center for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias Fairfield CT; An individual searching for a therapist or counselor in Fairfield, CT, might have wondered what the difference is between these two similar professions. Both therapists and counselors are regulated by state licensing boards and provide a range of services to those struggling with mental health and addiction issues. However, there are important differences between therapists and counselors.
At The Center for Anxiety Disorders & Phobias in Fairfield, CT, we see people seeking help for anxiety disorders, depression and various other mental health challenges every day. The center has four licensed clinical psychologists who provide cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to clients across the age spectrum. They also use CBT to help people struggling with substance abuse problems address their addictions.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold standard of treatment for both addictions and mental health disorders. CBT helps people change negative thought patterns that exacerbate their struggles with anxiety-related disorders, depression or alcoholism. Our clinicians work with patients on developing new skills that can help them cope with challenges in a constructive way. They also help clients modify problematic behaviors that contribute to their anxiety or depression symptoms.
Therapists vs Counselors: What’s the Difference?
The terms “therapist” and “counselor” are often used interchangeably these days, but
The Center for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias at Fairfield University is a university-based clinic offering evidence-based treatment of anxiety disorders, phobias, and related problems in adults, adolescents and children.
We provide treatment programs that have been shown to be effective by scientific research.
The Center for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias (CADP) was founded by Dr. Martin Antony, an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of anxiety disorders. CADP uses state-of-the-art methods to treat anxiety and phobias such as exposure therapy and contingency management. Our services are covered by many insurance providers and we offer a sliding fee scale for individuals without insurance or with out-of-network coverage.
The Center for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias is a treatment facility for the effective treatment of anxiety disorders including:
Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Social Phobia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Specific Phobias, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Performance Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
The Center for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias is a non-profit organization that provides low fee specialized treatment for anxiety disorders, including exposure and response prevention (ERP) treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, phobias, social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), health anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Treatment is provided by clinicians who are licensed psychologists or in advanced training under the supervision of licensed psychologists.
The Center was established in 2004 by Dr. Jerilyn Ross, a nationally recognized expert on the treatment of OCD, to bring ERP treatment to more people with minimal cost and wait time. The Center’s mission is to provide high quality evidence-based therapy to people with anxiety disorders through a professional staff trained in the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders. Our goal is to provide low fee services so that treatment is available to all regardless of their ability to pay.
Anxiety is an emotion characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination. It includes subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over fearful events. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, apprehension, or worry. Some fears and worries are justified, such as worry about a loved one or in anticipation of taking a test or making an important decision. However, anxiety disorders involve more than temporary worry or fear. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. The symptoms can interfere with daily activities such as job performance, school work, and relationships.
- If a person is experiencing more than one of these symptoms and they persist for two weeks or more, they may be experiencing a panic attack.
- If a person feels that their symptoms are severe enough to interfere with their daily life, they may be experiencing anxiety.
- Most importantly, if a patient is experiencing any of the above symptoms, they should seek out a mental health professional to help them determine if they should receive treatment for anxiety.
Are Phobias Apart of Anxiety Disorders?
While phobias are quite different from anxiety disorders, they are usually considered a form of anxiety disorder.
Phobias are irrational fears and concerns that cause significant distress or disability. They can include such things as fear of spiders or heights, and they can affect someone in any setting, whether driving on the road, flying on an airplane, or walking down the street.
Anxiety disorders are a group of conditions that involve excessive worry and a variety of uncomfortable physical symptoms. They are not to be confused with panic attacks; these are sudden attacks of intense fear that come without warning. Most people who have anxiety disorders don’t have panic attacks, but they do experience other symptoms of anxiety and develop a number of other problems as well.
Is there a connection between phobias and anxiety disorders? Yes. Studies have found that many commonly experienced phobias are actually symptoms of other conditions, including social anxiety, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Many people who experience phobias suffer from other psychological problems as well — depression, for instance. Anxiety disorders are often linked to psychological problems like depression, but not always. Only about a third of people with generalized anxiety or panic disorder also have major social phobia.
Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder that causes people to experience intense, persistent fear of a particular object or situation. They’re commonly associated with a sense of helplessness regarding the fear, as well as anxiety and avoidance behaviors (such as avoiding situations or places that have the object or situation).
Many people with phobias will go to great lengths to avoid the object or situation. Others might be able to control their fear by controlling their environment and consciously managing their thoughts. Regardless of how you try to conquer your phobia, most people find that it typically has a significant impact on their lives — and not in a good way
People with phobias can also be triggered by other events, such as smells or sounds. The most common types of phobias include:
Fear of animals such as snakes, spiders and dogs.
Fear of flying.
Fear of heights.
Fear of enclosed spaces.
Fear of the dark.
Fear of vomiting or passing out.
Phobias are common and can affect anyone, even people without anxiety disorders. Phobias are irrational fears, but they’re not just a whim. These fears typically distort how a person perceives the world around them, leading to avoidance behavior.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) defines phobias as “an excessive or unreasonable fear of that which is inanimate or inanimate objects.” According to the Mayo Clinic, an anxiety disorder occurs when you’re experiencing more than normal levels of stress or worry. Anxiety disorders can range from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which involves worrying about everyday things like work problems or health issues, to social anxiety disorder (SAD), which is characterized by a fear of speaking or being around others.
Phobias refer to a persistent, intense fear of something. For example, a phobia can be a fear of heights.
Some people who suffer from anxiety disorders experience panic attacks as their primary symptom, and sometimes this is accompanied by phobic symptoms as well. In fact, the two are often related. Panic disorders are thought to be triggered by excessive fear; and in some people, it is possible for the two to occur together.
Anxiety disorders are complex mental illnesses that can be difficult to diagnose and treat. However, there are ways to give yourself an immediate boost if you’re having trouble managing your symptoms.”
A phobia is an irrational fear of something. It’s the type of anxiety that makes you want to avoid something or flee from it. It can be very difficult to control.
There are four types of phobias:
Agoraphobia, or a fear of being in public places or open spaces.
Panic attacks, characterized by sudden and intense feelings of fear and panic that can cause great discomfort and physical symptoms.
Selective mutism, where a person is unable to speak in certain situations.
Social anxiety disorder, which includes feelings of anxiety and discomfort while being around other people or being in social situations (such as speaking in public).
When you have a phobia, you have a physiological response to something that shouldn’t cause it. The good news is that phobias are treatable and often preventable. We’ll show you how, by learning about the kinds of phobias out there, what causes them and what can help you overcome them.
Can Anxiety Cause Phobias?
Yes, anxiety can cause phobias. Phobias are intense, irrational fears about specific things or situations. A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder that involves extremely negative feelings towards a particular trigger. In some cases, the fear is so strong that it interferes with an individual’s ability to perform day-to-day activities.
For example, someone with a fear of flying may avoid flying altogether or have an intense panic attack when they are about to board an airplane. Phobias can be extremely disabling and interfere with a person’s quality of life.
Phobias often develop after someone has had a negative experience related to the feared object or situation or learned to avoid it because they associated it with danger. For example, someone who has a phobia of dogs may have been bitten as a child and learned to fear them due to the trauma of being bitten. This is called classical conditioning and is one way in which phobias can form.
No, anxiety cannot cause phobias. What it can do is cause you to over-worry about things that are going on in your life. For example, if you have an anxiety disorder and you’re afraid of the dark, you may worry that you’ll never be able to sleep without a light on.
That’s where phobias come from: They arise when a person’s anxiety reaches a certain level. Once it gets there, the person may develop one or more of several types of phobias, including agoraphobia (a fear of public places), social phobia (a fear of social situations), or claustrophobia (a fear of being in small spaces).
The good news is that anxiety disorders are treatable. If you have an anxiety disorder, the first step is to get help for it. Anxiety treatment might involve medication and/or psychotherapy.
If you have an anxiety disorder and develop a phobia as well, both conditions should be treated at the same time. That way, they don’t feed off each other and make each other worse.
There is a very close link between anxiety and phobias. In fact, you may have suffered from an anxiety disorder before your phobia developed, or you might be looking for information on how to treat your child’s social anxiety and wondering if it will turn into a phobia.
Anxiety disorders are one of the most common mental health conditions in Australia, affecting around 14% of the population. They are also one of the most treatable conditions.
Phobias themselves can be hugely debilitating. Specific phobias especially can make it difficult to leave the house or even to live a normal life. If you have a specific phobia, you will probably already know how this feels!
What is a Phobia?
A specific phobia is an irrational fear of a particular thing or situation which leads to avoidance. The fear itself can range from mild to severe. It is also possible (and fairly common) to have more than one specific phobia at the same time. Examples include:
Fear of being in social situations (also known as social anxiety)
Fear of being injured by needles or injections (known as trypanophobia)
Fear of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia)
Yes. It’s no coincidence that many phobias involve situations that can make us feel anxious or out of control. This is because anxiety and fear are closely connected. We often worry about things that frighten us, and facing our fears can trigger anxiety.
The opposite is also true — when we feel anxious, we might fear the worst will happen, which can set off a panic attack.
For example, let’s say you’re on a plane and hear the pilot say, “We’re experiencing some turbulence,” which turns into a rough ride. If you’ve already been worrying about taking this flight, you might start to think, “What if something goes wrong with the plane?”
This anxiety can lead to a panic attack, causing immediate symptoms such as a pounding heart, trouble breathing, nausea or sweating. Once you have a panic attack on an airplane, you might develop an irrational fear of airplanes (aviophobia). You might avoid flying in the future or experience severe anxiety whenever you do.
In turn, your aviophobia could also lead to agoraphobia (a fear of open spaces), especially if your panic attacks are so severe that they prevent you from leaving your home for long periods of time.
A phobia isn’t usually caused by anxiety. At least, not in the sense of one causing the other.
Anxiety and phobias are most commonly caused by a traumatic event or events.
In addition to this trauma, there are other factors that can lead to the development of a phobia.
Most people who have a phobia will be able to think back to something that happened in their past which they believe contributed to their phobia. This is often a traumatic event such as falling from height or being attacked by an animal.
One thing that is worth noting is that the connection between the traumatic event and the phobia may not be obvious at first sight. For example, someone who develops a fear of spiders may never have been attacked by one but may have seen a loved one attacked when they were young and so developed the fear after seeing someone else suffer a traumatic event.
It can be difficult for some people to pinpoint exactly what sparked off their fear but it is generally accepted that some kind of traumatic experience has been involved in most cases.
Phobias are irrational and extreme fears of specific objects or situations, such as heights, spiders, and flying. A person with a phobia will go to great lengths to avoid the object or situation that causes anxiety. Phobias are not just “extreme fears”; they are irrational fears because we know that the feared object or situation poses little to no real danger.
Specific phobias are considered anxiety disorders because the person experiences intense fear and anxiety when exposed to the specific object or situation. The person may be aware that their fear is unreasonable or excessive but cannot control it.
Ways to Manage Phobias:
The best way to manage a phobia is by avoiding the thing you fear. However, this is not always possible, and some people with phobias may be able to confront what they fear but still experience anxiety and panic attacks
There are many types of phobias. One of the most common is a fear of animals, such as spiders and snakes.
There are two main types of animal phobias:
Specific phobias: People with specific phobias experience intense anxiety and fear from exposure to a particular thing or situation.
Social phobia: This type of phobia refers to a fear of social situations which may be sparked by specific events or experiences.
They can also be accompanied by feelings of anxiety, panic, and fear, as well as physical symptoms (e.g., sweating and rapid heart rate).