Table of contents:
- What is claustrophobia
- Causes of claustrophobia
- Difference between claustrophobia and delusional disorder
- Claustrophobia symptoms
- How to overcome claustrophobia: treatment
- Claustrophobia: psychological treatment
- Claustrophobia: drug treatment
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Surely all of us as human beings have had some experience that produces an exorbitant fear. Fear paralyzes us and fills us with anguish about what may happen minutes, hours or days later, but it can also trigger a vasovagal or noradrenergic response where our hearts flutter, our blood freezes, our hairs get tip, our pupils dilate and all we want to do is run out of a certain situation. What characterizes us as subjective beings is that not all of us fear the same things, some fear heights more intensely, others animals, some blood and a very considerable number have an intense fear of closed places or with little space. That is why in this Psychology-Online article we explain more about theclaustrophobia, what it is, its causes, symptoms and both psychological and pharmacological treatment of this phobia.
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- Causes of claustrophobia
- Difference between claustrophobia and delusional disorder
- Claustrophobia symptoms
- How to overcome claustrophobia: treatment
What is claustrophobia
What does claustrophobia mean? Claustrophobia is a type of anxiety disorder in which there is intense fear or anxiety for places with little or closed space. For example, some of these places might be the following:
- Elevators.
- Small rooms.
- Tunnels
- Vehicles with all windows closed.
- Rooms with little or no lighting.
Being fear or fear a natural emotion and necessary for human survival, it cannot be labeled as something pathological or abnormal. It transforms into something that requires psychological intervention when this fear incapacitates us to function properly or as we used to do before the characteristic symptoms appeared. In the following article you will find more information about what fear is in psychology.
The claustrophobia part of anxiety disorders in DSM 5 (2013), in a subcategory called specific phobias. Claustrophobia is, as its name implies, a type of phobia characterized by its phobic stimulus: closed spaces.
But in order to make a diagnosis of specific phobia, the fear response must differ from the normal and transient fears that are commonly produced in the population. In order for the diagnostic criteria to be met, the fear or anxiety must be intense and serious, although this fear may vary with the proximity of the feared situation (closed spaces) and may occur in anticipation of it or in actual exposure to the situation.. Therefore, a person who experiences anxiety only rarely when exposed to confined spaces would not be diagnosed (for example, if one in five times they experience anxiety when being indoors or in confined spaces).
However, the degree of fear or anxiety may vary at different times of exposure to closed spaces due to various contextual factors, such as the presence or accompaniment of other people, the duration in which it is kept inside closed spaces and the room size and the number and size of possible exits (doors and windows).
DSM 5 (2013) states that the sociocultural environment of the individual must be taken into account when diagnosing claustrophobia. For example, fear of the dark may be reasonable in contexts of continuous violence or fear of confined spaces may be reasonable for illnesses that involve airway obstruction.
Above all, in order to diagnose a person with claustrophobia, the phobia must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of activity.
Causes of claustrophobia
The risk factors or possible causes of claustrophobia presented by DSM 5 (2013) are the following:
- Environmental: such as parental overprotection, loss of parents, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and harmful experiences in places similar to phobic stimuli.
- Genetic and Physiological: There may be a genetic susceptibility to claustrophobia (for example, a person with a first-degree relative who has suffered the same intense and marked fear of closed places is significantly more likely to have the same phobia).
- Temperamental: a negative affectivity or behavioral inhibition contribute to the appearance of this phobic disorder.
Difference between claustrophobia and delusional disorder
In response to the delusions of patients with schizophrenia or a delusional disorder, they sometimes avoid objects. Therefore, the same symptom can appear as in claustrophobia: avoid closed or confined places. However, the marked difference between these two pathologies is that in schizophrenia and the rest of psychotic disorders it presents with anosognosia (ignorance of the disease or the situation referred to patients who do not have perception of their functional deficits). While in claustrophobia, whoever presents it is aware of it.
Claustrophobia symptoms
According to DSM 5 (2013) the symptoms of claustrophobia are the following:
- Persistence of a coping mechanism of avoidance of the phobic stimulus.
- Many times your symptoms present in the form of a complete or limited panic attack (expected or unexpected)
- Feeling short of breath
- Incrise of cardiac frecuency.
- Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).
- Shaking or shaking.
- Feeling of suffocation
- Pain or discomfort in the chest.
- Nausea or abdominal discomfort.
- Motor agitation
- Hyperventilation
- Feeling dizzy, unsteady, light-headed, or fainting.
- Chills or feeling hot
- Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensation).
We understand then that the person diagnosed with claustrophobia is not afraid of the closed space in itself, but of the possible unpleasant consequences of being in the place. For example, to stay locked up forever or suffocate due to the little amount of air in the place, limitation of movements (moving arms, legs or head).
When the person with claustrophobia anticipates that they will enter or enter a closed space, they will experience the noradrenergic and / or vasovagal reaction: dizziness, increased heart rate or any of the above listed. Because of these symptoms, confined spaces are generally avoided (eg take the stairs instead of the elevator).
How to overcome claustrophobia: treatment
Claustrophobia usually complicates the life of the person who presents it in some aspects. A common example is the medical test of magnetic resonance imaging, because to perform this test the patient must be inside a closed tube-shaped device. Therefore, it is important to apply an effective treatment for claustrophobia in order to improve the quality of life of the patient.
Claustrophobia: psychological treatment
Below are two types of behavioral techniques for claustrophobia psychological intervention:
- Flooding therapy or flooding: Celedonio Castanedo (2008) states that in flood therapy an imaginary or in vivo situation is created, in which the patient is exposed to situations that produce anxiety while doing everything possible to prevent it from produce avoidance or escape responses such as being distracted, falling asleep or ceasing to imagine the situation arguing tiredness, laziness or headache. It is one of a kind of exposure techniques. Although certain risks have been found when the patient decides to suspend treatment due to how invasive the treatment is, but it creates a faster result than systematic desensitization, which is somewhat more structured and takes a longer process.
- Systematic desensitization: According to Celedonio Castanedo it is a technique created by J. Wolpe in which its basic procedure establishes a list of situationsin which key stimuli found in the analysis of the components of the anxiety response are incorporated. These stimuli are included tactically so that situations have the ability to evoke anxiety, with different degrees of intensity, then the patient is asked to imagine himself experiencing those situations. Then, according to the intensity of the anxiety experienced, the list of situations is structured in a hierarchy that begins with situations that produce the lowest levels of intensity and ends with the most anxious. Systematic desensitization then consists of asking the person with claustrophobia that, being relaxed (for this they will have previously trained in relaxation techniques),imagine several scenes that each provoke a greater reaction than the previous one. TheRepeated presentation in imagination, while the subject is relaxed, of phobic stimuli, produces the gradual weakening and elimination of anxiety responses.
Claustrophobia: drug treatment
The drugs of first choice due to their reduced side effects are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), each of which must be prescribed and controlled by a clinical professional. Below is the most effective drug in treating specific phobias (claustrophobia):
- Escitalopram - Generally classified as an antidepressant, but it does not serve as an antidepressant alone.
How does it work? Improves serotonin transmission, blocks the serotonin reuptake process, desensitizes serotonin receptors and increases serotonin transmission.
How long does it take to take effect? The effects are not immediate, usually until the second or fourth week. If there are no effects for six to eight weeks a higher dose may be required or no effect may be achieved and then you can switch to another drug or add another drug as an adjuvant. The usual dose is 10-20 mg per day and is increased to 20mg per day if necessary (one intake in the morning and one in the afternoon). Its routes of administration can be by tablets, capsules or oral solution. The trade names are Lexapro, Celtium, and Meridian.
Their side effects and their respective interactions with other drugs should be taken into account. For example, with tramadol, monoamine oxidase blockers, triptan, and anticoagulants.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Claustrophobia: what it is, causes, symptoms and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical Psychology.
Tips- To learn to control the anxiety that is generated in situations of claustrophobia, it is important to know how to listen to your own body, detecting when it is getting tense, in order to start the relaxation techniques in which the patient will be instructed in behavioral therapies.
- The anticipation. The established tendency in the claustrophobic to make negative predictions and anticipations about what will happen when entering a closed space (not being able to move, suffocating…). For this, cognitive techniques are used aimed at maintaining uncertainty with a normal level of d
- Before entering a confined space, stop and breathe deeply.
- American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5). Editorial Panamericana.
- Castanedo Secadas, C. (2008). Six psychotherapeutic approaches. Editorial El Manual Moderno. Mexico City.