Do you or someone you know have a very specific phobia that isn't related to another diagnosis such as PTSD? Watch this video!
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Dr. B here with our series on demystifying the DSM and today, we're going to be talking about specific phobias, which is one of my fun topics that I talk about. But just to clarify, specific phobias are around a specific thing, not associated with another disorder, so not associated with post-traumatic stress. If you have a specific fear and it’s related to being triggered from a traumatic event, that's more PTSD. Specific phobias are usually something very specific and isolated with no real understanding as to why. Like claustrophobia, and people who are scared to fly. These are common specific phobias, and we often joke to just stop it. Just do it, face your fears, overcome it, and there's actually a type of therapy called systematic desensitization where you do that. But you don't just want to force somebody to go on the airplane who is very scared of going on an airplane, because if they do have a panic attack in the middle of the air, it's going to cause a lot of, at minimum, drama on the airplane. What you do is more of a systematic desensitization. Where you maybe go to a museum where you can sit in an airplane, you get yourself into closed spots. You ask your doctor, maybe, for an as needed medication to take while you go on a plane so that if you start to panic while you're in the air, that you can take that. That's one of the things that we would do here at Mentally STRONG. If it was just this isolated specific phobia, we would challenge you to try to do it without the medication, but having the medication there is your security blanket. If I do start to panic, I have something to take that panic away. What we don't like to do or what I don't like to do when I'm working with people is just give them something to use as needed and never really working on improving that, because we do know that we can control our anxiety. Sometimes that takes a lot of time and practice, and so we're not against giving medication for that in in specific times. But also, I'm going to challenge you if there's a functional impairment to this, I'm going to challenge you to do it. I hope my mom is not watching, but I'm going to use my mom as an example of being afraid of airplanes. And she literally would not get on an airplane to come visit me. She and her husband got an RV and they drove out to visit us. They would drive which was a 36-hour drive. They would rather drive 36 hours than be on a plane for four hours. I would always try to challenge her. And you know my mom is not going to listen to her daughter. But when Reggie died, she had to get on the plane. And she got on a plane, and she did use a medication to do that. What she said to me was very powerful. She said, the worst thing has happened. I can do this; I can get on that plane. Of course, I have to make everything emotional. Specific phobias, you should try to challenge yourself, but is not necessary until it is, right? If she would have refused to get on a plane that day, that would be a major functional impairment in her life, but she did it. She had to do it. She did it so, that's how you judge whether you need to really work on this. If there was a real emergency, could you do what you had to do to be with your loved ones or to support or to whatever the case may be? Specific phobias don't necessarily have to be treated. Sometimes it's, I'm scared of spiders, so you don't go camping right? But you know, think about it, examine it. Do you need to treat that? And if you do, challenge yourself to treat that.
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Dr. Cristi Bundukamara, Ed.D, PMHNP-BC --- A Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and a Doctor of Healthcare Education has experienced unimaginable trials that have caused many feelings such as depression, anxiety, anger, & overwhelming stress. 
However, she has developed a new pathway to becoming Mentally St