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Do all fears and phobias have a reasons for existing?
Say for example someone has acrophobia, are they afraid of spiders because something bad happened to them in relation to spiders, at one point in their life? And the reason for being afraid of spiders might be a repressed memory.
I figure that there is something trauma-related when it comes to phobias, because why would you be afraid of something if something did not made you fear it? If that makes sense.
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4 Replies
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No. You can definitely have a fear or a phobia without having a specific reason behind it. Humans have evolved to have fears of things and people will naturally have fears of different things – it won’t always be rooted in a traumatic event. That type of thinking can cause harm by trying to look for trauma that likely doesn’t exist if it’s just a standard fear or phobia.
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Good to know.
Was curious, did not know that kind of thinking was potentially harmful. So, thanks for that.
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As BraiDID said, sometimes a phobia is just a phobia. 😉 In general, I don’t think it’s necessarily healthy to go looking for trauma. If it’s there, it will come up naturally in time.
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Some may be rooted in trauma, like mine are. Some may not be. Like cats being shit scared of cucumbers because of their biological fear of snakes. I think, while it’s comforting and gives a sense of closure to know why you have the phobias you do, that it’s more important to focus on how to get through them and heal from them, as this can be done without ever knowing the root cause.
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