The acrophobia or fear of heights is a phobia or irrational fear of heights. People who suffer from it experience panic attacks in high places and are agitated to try to get to safety.
It generally affects recreational activities, although in some cases it can affect daily life. For example: avoid railings, elevators and stairs, avoid going to high floors, avoid going over bridges ...
Between 2 and 5% of the population suffers from this disorder, with twice as many women affected as men. The word "vertigo" is often used as a synonym for this phobia. However, vertigo refers to a feeling of dizziness or spinning when the person is not actually spinning..
Vertigo can be caused by:
When dizziness occurs from heights, it is classified as "vertigo at heights".
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For acrophobia to occur, the fear of heights must be excessive and unrealistic. Therefore, the symptoms must be exaggerated compared to the situation in which they appear. As with other types of phobias, acrophobia is associated with three main types of responses: anxiety, fear, and panic..
Although they are usually used interchangeably, anxiety, panic and fear are different:
Depending on the situation, a person can experience anything from medium levels of anxiety or fear to a complete panic attack. In addition to anxiety, panic and fear, several physiological responses can be generated:
The emotion of fear is usually accompanied by some type of behavior that reduces the feeling of fear. In most cases that response is escape or avoidance..
People with a fear of heights usually avoid being in tall buildings, balconies, high seats in theaters or sports stadiums ... Other people may avoid even looking at people who are in high places or looking at high places.
If someone with acrophobia is in a high place, they usually perform safety behaviors such as: avoid looking down, avoid approaching windows or balconies, avoiding someone approaching them ...
It seems that the fear of most people with acrophobia is not related to a conditioning based on previous experiences. Evolutionary theory states that fear of heights is a natural adaptation to a context in which falling can result in death or great danger.
From this theory all human beings are afraid of being at great heights. The degree of fear varies between each person and the term phobia is reserved for irrational fear.
On the other hand, according to a study published in the journal Psychological Science, acrophobia depends on the peripheral vision we have when we move.
In some cases the fear of heights can develop through direct, vicarious (observing) or informative (recounted) experiences.
Fear of heights tends to be associated with phobic thinking or negative thoughts about the dangers of being in high places.
If you are sure that you are safe in a high place, you will not be afraid. However, if you think that a place is unsafe and that it is likely to fall, it is normal to experience anxiety or fear..
The thoughts that accompany fear can be so rapid and automatic that you are not aware of them. Some normal examples of acrophobia are:
In some cases, this phobia is not a problem in life. For example, if a person is afraid to climb mountains and does not do mountaineering, nothing happens.
However, in other cases it can influence and have negative consequences in daily life. For example, someone with acrophobia may live in a city and be constantly avoiding elevators, tall buildings, bridges, or stairs..
In the latter case, the phobia could affect the type of work that is sought, the activities that are carried out or the places to which one goes.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the main treatment for treating specific phobias.
Behavioral techniques are used that expose the patient to the feared situation gradually (systematic desensitization, exposure) or rapidly (flooding).
One of the first applications of virtual reality in Clinical Psychology has been in acrophobia.
In 1995 the scientist Rothbaum and colleagues published the first study; the patient managed to overcome the fear of heights by exposing himself in a virtual setting.
In this section I will specifically explain the exposure technique, which is often used in cognitive-behavioral therapy. With exposure, the person with a fear of heights faces this situation progressively and with various activities. A hierarchy is used for this.
The goal is desensitization, that is to say that the person feels less and less to the heights. This therapy consists of:
The hierarchy is intended to create a scale from lowest to highest, from the least feared situation to the most feared. This hierarchy will involve the steps that will bring you closer to the maximum feared situation, for example being on a balcony or going up and down floors with an elevator..
In this way, the first step will cause minimal anxiety and the last step will cause maximum anxiety. It is recommended that the hierarchy consist of 10-20 steps. On the other hand, if the person with phobia has an excessive fear of heights, a person can accompany him to perform the steps.
Example with an elevator:
In this case, if you have a fear of heights when using elevators, you would have to perform those steps several times a week until the fear or anxiety has almost completely subsided..
Ideally, it should be done 3-5 times a week. Longer sessions tend to produce better results than shorter ones.
It is recommended that you withdraw from the situation if the anxiety you feel is prominent. That is, you feel dizzy, heart rate racing, muscle tension, fear of losing control ...
If you feel uncomfortable but feel in control, you can continue to expose yourself to the situation..
It is important that to overcome fear you expose yourself to real situations. However, to start you can expose yourself in imagination.
It is about visualizing the situations that you have placed in the hierarchy, although in the imagination.
You usually have a resistance to being exposed to anxiety-provoking situations. To overcome that resistance:
And are you afraid of heights? What are you doing to get over it?
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