The causes and clinical manifestations of children's phobias

What is childhood phobia? Many of our children are facing this kind of trouble. We cannot ignore the situation of this disease. How do they hurt our children? I believe they must not be so happy. I hope you can understand. The following editor would like to introduce the causes and clinical manifestations of childhood phobia to you. Let's take a closer look!

1. Causes of the disease

Social Learning Theory: Irrational responses to benign and uncertain stimuli are learned. Psychoanalytic theory states that this is caused by anxiety generated by subconscious conflicts, which are then displaced and externalized onto the feared objects and situations. Developmental theory suggests that fear and anxiety should be understood in the process of development; they may be reasonable in one period and irrational in another. The mutual influence theory holds that terror occurs and is maintained within specific family and social relationships. Other scholars believe that phobia is related to the quality factors of the children, such as introverted personality, timidity, strong dependence, and prone to anxiety when encountering things. Experiencing or witnessing unexpected events (such as car accidents, earthquakes and other natural disasters) is also one of the causes of phobias.

2. Clinical manifestations

The clinical manifestations mainly include the following three aspects:

(1) The child develops an abnormally strong and persistent fear of certain objects or special environments. Although they know that the object of fear is not dangerous to them, they are unable to control their fear and anxiety and are extremely distressed. According to the object of phobia, it is clinically divided into animal phobia, disease phobia, social phobia, and special environment phobia (such as heights, schools, darkness, squares, etc.).

(2) Children display avoidant behavior, often fleeing from terrifying scenes.

(3) Manifestations of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, such as palpitations, rapid breathing, sweating, and increased blood pressure.

3. DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for social phobia

(1) Problems with age-appropriate social relationships with familiar people or anxiety among peers; (2) Anxiety is almost inevitable in the feared social situations, which may take the form of limiting the situation or being induced by it. This anxiety may manifest as crying, temper tantrums, freezing, or withdrawing from situations with unfamiliar people; (3) The child generally tries to avoid such situations, or endures them with extreme anxiety or distress; (4) The avoidance, anxiety, or distress about the phobic situation significantly interferes with the individual's normal life, learning, or social activities or relationships, or the phobic situation causes significant distress;

4. Disease Treatment

Comprehensive treatment is required, with psychotherapy as the main approach and drug therapy as the auxiliary approach. Behavioral therapy (including systematic desensitization, practical desensitization, shock therapy, exposure therapy, positive reinforcement, demonstration method, etc.) combined with supportive therapy, cognitive therapy, relaxation therapy and music and game therapy can generally achieve better results. Children with severe symptoms may be given low doses of antianxiety drugs or antidepressants.

Knowing so many causes and clinical manifestations related to children's phobias, we must pay more attention to these children. Our children are suffering, and this is a very critical point for us. The editor has introduced so much here, and I hope you can know a lot. I hope these children are all healthy.