Many people have fears about lot of things and they dislike many more things but phobia is very different. Phobia is the intense fear about certain things. It is the extremes of the fear, may be fear multiplied 1000 times. Say for example if you see a spider on your window and still finish the work in side being conscious of the spiders movement, you may be having fear. If you run out of the room yelling and shivering the moment you spot the spider, you may be having phobia.

A phobia is an intense, unrealistic fear of an object, an event, or a feeling. An estimated 18-20 percent adult population suffers from some kind of phobia, and a person can develop a phobia of anything--elevators, clocks, mushrooms, closed spaces, open spaces.

Exposure to these trigger the rapid breathing, pounding heartbeat, and sweaty palms of panic.

There are three defined types of phobias:

• Specific or simple phobias--fear of an object or situation, such as spiders, heights or flying
• Social phobias--fear of embarrassment or humiliation in social settings
• Agoraphobia--fear of being away from a safe place.
• No one knows for sure how phobias develop. Often, there is no explanation for the fear. In many cases, though, a person can readily identify an event or trauma--such as being chased by a dog--that triggered the phobia. What puzzles experts is why some people who experience such an event develop a phobia and others do not.