If you know someone living with a phobia, it can be tough to know how to help. Maybe your child has an intense fear of the dark that’s stopping them sleeping at night, or maybe a friend or colleague’s fear of driving is making their daily commute a nightmare. Whatever kind of phobia your loved one is experiencing, having someone close to help them manage it can make all the difference.
You might not be able to cure your friend or family member’s phobia, but there are definitely some things you can do to help them manage their fears and symptoms. But first: a couple of things you should try to avoid.
Don’t tell them it’s all in their head
Let’s start with the absolute basics. Telling someone a phobia is all in their head is like telling a cancer patient that the tumour is “all in your stomach”. It’s technically true, but it sure doesn’t do much to help! There are no visible symptoms of a phobia, so it can be hard to see why a person becomes so afraid of something that you manage to face all the time.
Just remember that everyone sees the world differently. You don’t have access to the inside of your friend’s head, so you don’t know what the world looks like from their perspective. You yourself might be able to handle heights, or spiders, or whatever just fine, but your friend isn’t going through all the stress and embarrassment of a phobia just for the fun of it, and if the cure was as easy as “snapping out of it” then they probably would have tried that by now.
Don’t Help them Avoid Their Fears
Avoiding the thing you’re afraid of might seem like a pretty sensible and practical solution, so you might think that helping your loved one in this would be a great way to support them. The problem is, if you avoid the thing you’re afraid of, your fear never goes away, and so you have to live with the restrictions it causes indefinitely.
Imagine if your child is afraid of the dark, and you try to help them by installing a nightlight or leaving the bathroom light on at night. Suppose they never grow out of it, and continue to live with it into their teenage years- being unable to hang out with friends in the evening or go to sleepovers. As an adult, they may one day have to embarrassingly admit to a potential partner that they still sleep with the light on. Avoiding the thing they fear has led to them continuing to be restricted by it for their entire life. And the worst part is that darkness poses no threat to their safety at all- and yet it still continues to dictate what they can and can’t do.
Now there’s nothing wrong with installing a night light for young children. But sooner or later that child needs to learn that sleeping in the dark is just as safe as sleeping with the light. So going along with your loved one’s avoidance strategies too whole-heartedly may end up harming them more than it helps.
Gently Challenge How They Think
Phobias are driven by unrealistic assessments of how dangerous something is. A person with a phobia may hold beleifs about their feared situation which would seem extremely unreasonable to you, but to them are beyond questioning. Examples may include someone with a snake phobia thinking that snakes are far more common than they really are, or far more deadly to humans; someone with a fear of elevators greatly overestimating the chance of a malfunction while in one; or someone with a blood and injury phobia thinking they will pass out at the mere sight of a scratch or graze.
Treatment for phobias aims to challenge and adjust these unrealistic beleifs, and you can gently begin this process to help your friend see that their beleifs may not hold up to scrutiny. You don’t need to be a trained therapist to spot when your friend expresses a belief or statement that seems exaggerated or unrealistic. When they do, don’t pounce on them or tell them to stop being so silly- instead just ask some gentle questions. “Are snakes really that common round here?” “What makes you so sure the elevator will fail?” “Have you ever had a cut or scratch and not passed out?” Helping your friend think about these things changes their phobic beleifs from being set in stone to being open to examination, which is a really great start.
Let Them Know Help is Available
People living with phobias may believe their situation is hopeless, and that they simply have to live with their condition and manage it as best they can. This is totally not true! Phobias of all kinds are perfectly treatable using evidence-based treatment such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Getting help for a phobia isn’t always easy- it means having to face the problem head on, and your loved one may feel a fair amount of shame and embarrassment around their condition. Having a friend in their corner to offer practical and emotional support can make this process much easier, so let your friend know you are there if they need you.
