Dromophobia: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

The Dromophobia Is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by experiencing excessive and irrational feelings of fear when crossing the street.

It's about a Type of phobia Specific in which people who suffer from it develop high anxiety responses every time they have to cross a street or an urban intersection.

In spite of being a rare alteration, the dromophobia can be a disabling disabling disorder for the person. Individuals suffering from dromophobia have high difficulties in living in urban settings because of the fear they have when crossing the street.

However, today, dromophobia is a disorder that can be overcome if treated properly. This article reviews the main characteristics of the pathology, its causes, its symptoms and the interventions to be performed.

characteristics

Dromophobia is a anxiety disorder . Specifically it is cataloged as one of the multiple types of specific phobia. The dreaded element of this phobia covers all situations in which the person must cross a street or an urban intersection.

The person with dromophobia does not fear the intersections of the streets by itself, but the phobia lies in the action of crossing the street.

In this way, it is a disorder that is highly related to the behavior of the person. When the individual with dromophobia proposes to cross the street experiences high feelings of fear and anxiety.

The fear of crossing the street in a person with dromophobia is so high that it leads you to avoid these situations at all times. For this reason, people with this disorder may have enormous difficulties in functioning normally.

In this sense, one of the main characteristics of the disorder are the characteristics of the fear that the person experiences. The typical fear of dromophobia is characterized by phobic and therefore has the following properties:

1. It is excessive with respect to the exigencies of the situation.
2. It is not subject to rational thinking mechanisms.
3. It is uncontrollable on the part of the subject.
4. It leads to avoidance of the dreaded situation.
5. It is experienced in a constant and permanent way.

symptom

The symptomatology of the dromophobia is based on manifestations of anxiety. These appear whenever the individual is exposed to their dreaded situations due to the high feelings of fear that they originate.

In general, the symptomatology of dromophobia can be divided into three main groups: physical symptoms, cognitive symptoms and behavioral symptoms.

1- Physical symptoms

The experience of fear generates a series of modifications in the functioning of the organism of the person. These alterations are caused by an increase in the peripheral nervous system And is characterized mainly by:

1. Increased heart rate.
2. Increased respiratory rate.
3. Palpitations and / or tachycardia.
4. Feeling of choking.
5. Muscle tension.
6. Increased sweating.
7. Stomach and / or headache.
8. Dry mouth, nausea, dizziness and vomiting.

2- Cognitive symptoms

Together, dromophobia is characterized by generating a series of irrational and incongruous thoughts about the action of crossing streets or urban intersections.

These thoughts can acquire multiple modality and contents, but are always characterized by giving a highly negative character to the action of crossing the street and, together with the physical symptoms, generate the feelings of fear and fear.

3- Behavioral symptoms

Finally, dromophobia affects the behavioral pattern of the individual. This disorder modifies the normal behavior of the person and mainly generates the development of two behaviors: avoidance and escape.

Avoidance defines all those behaviors that the person with dromophobia sets in motion in order to avoid contact with their dreaded situation. The subjects with this alteration will avoid whenever they can the conduct of crossing the street due to the fear and the discomfort that it produces to them.

Escape, on the other hand, is that behavior that is set in motion when the individual is exposed to his dreaded situation. In this sense, it is usual that when people with dromophobia have no choice but to cross the street, do it as quickly as possible.

Diagnosis

The criteria that must be met to establish the diagnosis of dromophobia are the following:

1. Accused and persistent fear that is excessive or irrational, triggered by the presence or anticipation of the action of crossing a street or an urban intersection (phobic element)

2. Exposure to the phobic element almost invariably causes an immediate anxiety response, which can take the form of a anguish Situation more or less related to a given situation.

3. The person recognizes that this fear is excessive or irrational.

4. Phobic situations are avoided or endured at the expense of intense anxiety or discomfort.

5. Avoidance behaviors, anxious anticipation, or discomfort caused by feared situations strongly interfere with the person's normal routine, labor (or academic) or social relationships, or cause clinically significant discomfort.

6. In children under 18 years the duration of these symptoms must have been at least 6 months.

7. Anxiety, anxiety attacks or phobic avoidance behaviors can not be better explained by the presence of another mental disorder.

Causes

At present, it is maintained that the causes of dromophobia could be similar to those of other specific phobias.

In this sense, it is postulated that there is no single cause for the disorder and that different factors could contribute to its development. Such as:

1. Direct conditioning.
2. Vicarious conditioning.
3. Genetic factors.
4. Personality traits.
5. Cognitive styles.

Treatment

Today, the first choice intervention for the treatment of dromophobia is the Cognitive behavioral treatment , A type of psychotherapy that has shown very high levels of efficacy.

This treatment is based on exposing the person to his feared element in order to overcome his fear, and in the application of Relaxation techniques And cognitive therapy.

References

1. Antony MM, Brown TA, Barlow DH. Heterogeneity among specific phobia types in DSM-IV. Behav Res Ther 1997; 35: 1089-1100.

2. Barlow D. and Nathan, P. (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Psychology. Oxford University Press.

3. Caballo, V. (2011) Manual of psychopathology and psychological disorders. Madrid: Ed. Piramide.

4. Muris P, Schmidt H, Merckelbach H. The structure of specific phobia symptoms among children and adolescents. Behav Res Ther 1999; 37: 863-868.

5. Ost LG, Svensson L, Hellstrom K, Lindwall R. One-session treatment of specific phobias in youth: a randomized clinical trial. J Consult Clin Psychol 2001; 69: 814-824.