Fears And Phobias A Brief Overview

Psychiatry identifies three different categories of phobia:

Agoraphobia is a fear of open spaces. It is also a fear of
having a panic attack in a public place, of losing control in an
area from which escape may prove difficult or embarrassing.

Social Phobia is an irrational anxiety brought forth by exposure
to certain social situations, leading to avoidance behaviour.

Specific Phobia is a persistent and irrational fear in response
to some specific stimulus, which commonly results in avoidance
of/withdrawal from that stimulus. It could be triggered by an
insect or animal (zoophobia), by a situation like being trapped
in an enclosed space (claustrophobia) or it could be a fear of
disease (pathophobia). 

Approximately 1 in 23 people suffer from phobias. That's nearly
4.25% of the population. There are roughly 11.5 million
sufferers in the US and 2.5 million in the UK. Approximately
19.1 million American adults aged between 18 and 54 (13.3% of
people in this age group) in a given year have an anxiety
disorder. 5.2 million Americans (aged 18 to 54) or 3.7% of
people in this age group have social phobia. Approximately 3.2
million Americans have agoraphobia. Almost 6.2 million US
citizens have some sort of specific phobia. All three types of
phobia, social, agoraphobia and specific are likely to effect
between 5 and 10 people in every 100. Females are more prone to
irrational fears than males. Roughly twice as many women as men
suffer from panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder,
generalised anxiety disorder and specific phobia though about
equal numbers of women and men have obsessive-compulsive
disorder and social phobia. In England in 2002-3, there were 310
hospital consultant episodes for phobic anxiety disorders. 94%
required hospital admission. 40% were for men, 60% for women.
Only about 20% of specific phobias disappear on their own for an
adult.