• Question: how would you know if you have a phobia

    Asked by pandagirl32 to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      You wouldn’t know until you are exposed to that trigger – for example you wouldn’t know that you are claustrophobic (fear of enclosed spaces) until you do something that makes you feel claustrophobic. I sometimes have adults come to me for an MRI scan and they say they’ve never felt claustrophobic before, but then they feel weird in the MRI scanner and I talk to them afterwards and it sounds like they’ve had some claustrophobia but never knew.

      Sometimes phobias can have a genetic tendency, like there is some suggestion that the fear of needles may be genetic.

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