By Denise Billen-Mejia, MD (retired), Consulting Hypnotist
Fear has a bad reputation, which is a shame, because it’s one of the most useful things your brain does. It’s what stops you stepping off the kerb in front of a bus, and what makes you check the smoke alarm battery. Healthy fear is proportionate — it tracks the actual risk.
Here’s how I usually explain it. Where I live, the land is very flat, and every serious storm brings a real threat of flooding. So I take flooding seriously. I watch the forecast, I know which roads go under first, and I plan accordingly. That’s fear doing exactly the job it’s for.
Sharks, on the other hand, don’t trouble me in the slightest. They’re in the sea, and once in a while so am I — but attacks are rare, and there are guards on the beach. The risk simply doesn’t warrant the worry, so I don’t carry any.
Notice what’s doing the work there: the likelihood of the thing actually happening. Ordinary fear rises and falls with the real risk in front of you.
A phobia doesn’t work like that at all. Someone with a genuine shark phobia may not go in the sea even with the guards on duty. May not go in a swimming pool even! May feel their heart speed up at just a photograph. The likelihood has stopped mattering — and that, in a sentence, is the whole difference.
Not “irrational” — just set too sensitively
You’ll sometimes hear a phobia described as an irrational fear, and I’ve never much liked the phrase, because it suggests the person is being silly. They aren’t.
Think of it instead as an alarm that has been set too sensitively. The brain decided at some point that a particular thing meant danger, and it has gone on faithfully sounding the alarm ever since, whether or not there’s anything to sound it about. Knowing the alarm is wrong doesn’t switch it off — which is exactly what makes a phobia so exhausting.
Three marks to look for
The word itself gets thrown about very freely. People say they’re phobic about Mondays, or their inbox, or the sound of someone chewing. Usually they mean they dislike something intensely, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to feel — but it isn’t a phobia. And the loose usage does harm: it makes a real phobia sound like a strong preference, leaving the person who has one wondering why they can’t simply get over a thing like everybody else apparently manages.
So if you’re unsure which you’re dealing with, three marks to look for:
The body joins in, uninvited. The heart races, chest tightens, an overwhelming urge to get away emerges — the full emergency response, for something that poses no emergency at all.
Reason doesn’t touch it. You can know the odds perfectly well and feel not a jot better.
It costs you something. Journeys not taken, appointments not made, invitations declined. A phobia doesn’t sit quietly; it arranges your life around itself.
Dislike the dentist and go anyway? That’s an aversion, and you have my sympathy. Haven’t been in eleven years because the thought of the waiting room sets your heart hammering? That’s a phobia, and it deserves to be taken seriously — by you as much as by anyone.
Why it matters
This isn’t a matter of tidy definitions. Phobias quietly redirect the course of people’s health. A fear of needles keeps people from blood tests and vaccinations they genuinely need. Dental fear turns small problems into large ones. A phobia of medical settings altogether — and that’s more common than you’d think — means conditions get found later than they should.
There’s a peculiar shame attached to all this, too. People will happily tell you about their bad back, but not about the appointment they’ve been putting off for a decade. It feels childish to admit, precisely because the person knows the response is out of proportion.
It isn’t childish, and they aren’t weak. The people carrying these things are often the most capable adults you could meet, who simply have one alarm set too sensitively — usually installed in childhood, without their consent or even their awareness.
The encouraging part is what follows from that. Because a phobia is something the brain learned, it’s also something the brain can unlearn.
If you would like to talk through any of this, my contact details are below.
Dr. Denise Billen-Mejia is a former emergency medicine physician turned clinical hypnotist, dedicated to helping people find relief that conventional medicine alone hasn’t been able to provide.
To explore further, find articles and resources, or get in touch with Denise directl email office@aahypnosis.com or visit her website: healandberadiant.com
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