Alma Vazquez
Ms. Brown
December 3, y
AP 11 English

complexity to simplicity

Although a fear causes great discomfort for someone a phobia takes the fear to extremity and although they have its similarities too, a fear can be completely different. Fears are amongst almost everyone but “According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 8.7% of people, or about 19.2 million people or American adults, suffer from one or specific phobias” . Yes, a fear is something one is scared of but it is not as severe as a phobia. A fear is defined as an emotion induced by a threat perceived by living entities, which cause a change in brain and organ function and ultimately change in behavior. Similarly described but not exactly the same, a phobia is defined as an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance.
Fears can also be seen as something ordinary and can be treated by logic and simply facing the fear itself. For example, seeing a spider crawl in the restroom may have caused a fear of spiders but it may not be as severe as an arachnophobia. Although a fear can interfere with how one deals with such, in this case a spider, and phobia can interfere with ones daily life and how that would be dealt with. With a phobia one could spend inordinate amounts of time trying to avoid the fear and go to extreme measures and will even change their schedules to avoid the it at all cost. Knowing the distinction between the two is important because they are completely different on how one reacts to each. Fears also can be developed easily and with phobias it is the complete