Fear is an immediate and adaptive response to a threat or, at least, a perceived threat. A phobia, however, is the manifestation of that fear that develops way out of proportion to a perceived threat.
I am keenly interested to find out the origin of fears and phobias. There is much debate on the topic. Some say that a phobia is learned, usually following a traumatic experience. After that any additional experiences, even vicarious ones, or information constantly works to exacerbate the fear to the point where it becomes a phobia. But there are many who profess that phobias are an innate and evolutionary response to stimuli that suggests any potential to harm the individual of any given species. Deep in the brain is housed the amygdala and this is thought to be the central loci for emotion and response.
The latter explanation has merit but how does one explain the weird and wacky phobias that have been documented in the peer-reviewed literature (i.e. phobias that are really real). Ablutophobia - the fear of washing or bathing? Really?
More common in children or women, it seems much more likely that the origin of this phobia arises from some historical traumatic experience endured by the individual. I can imagine, knowing the effort required to convince my own children to regularly bath, that some less well adjusted and empathic parents may have, on more than one occasion aggressively and/or forcibly 'cleaned' their child and in doing so planted that seed of fear that then sprouts to become a phobia.
Whatever the case this is one conundrum that requires further explanation. Now all I need is a bag full of snakes (of the non-venomous variety) and a creche full of toddlers that have never seen a snake before. Add the two together, stand back and let science run its course.
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