Acrophobia

Irrational fear of heights.

While many people tend to enjoy adventurous sports of bungee and paragliding, from huge heights these days, many others may even have a hard time looking down from the fifth floor of a building. Acrophobia is a word derived from Greek word “acron” which means height. Any person who has persistent and intense fear and nervousness with heights may have acrophobia. It is signified by an overwhelming amount of fear that onsets upon encountering a great height. In fact, the fear may occur even when the person is merely climbing simple stairs.
It occurs in 5% of the world's population.

Causes

The major cause factors that have seen to develop acrophobia in people are:

A traumatic experience

Many times the phobia can be developed due to a traumatic incident related with falling from a great height or such accidents. The fear of heights is a naturally formed fear in human beings. However, if any such event occurs, the fear is magnified and leads to acrophobia. The fear can also get morbid simply by witnessing someone else go through a hurtful accident from height.

Evolutionary factor

All of us are born with the fear of heights. It is like a defense mechanism formed by our body as a response to huge heights like during cliff climbing or looking down from a hill. Studies show that event infants and toddlers become fearful when brought to a height. This is a learned behavior in all human beings since early civilizations. People tend to get acrophobia when the learned behavior goes over the extreme.

Symptoms

Common symptoms include the onset of panic attacks and vertigo. Vertigo is the medical condition in which the person develops dizziness. The major symptoms that occur with both children and adults having acrophobia are:

• Intensely fearful of climbing, going down or being at a height
• Anxiety upon anticipation of great heights
• Immediate reactions such as lowering the body, kneeling, going down instantly or desperately finding something to clutch when brought to a height
• Complete avoidance of places at height ( the person may even avoid a workplace or visiting a friend's place located at a height)
• Realizing that the fear is irrelevant (except in children)
• May or may not develop vertigo. It is a medical condition signified by the fear of dizziness
• Panic attacks accompanied by physical signs such as sweating, trembling, fainting or dizziness, nausea and vomiting, trouble in breathing, chest pain, racing heart beat, numbness around limbs, getting frozen, detachment from reality and feeling that one is getting mad

Treatment

Acrophobia can be treated in similar ways to other phobic and anxiety disorders, with a range of treatments including reality therapy and cognitive behavior therapy and the use of anti-anxiety medication.  Effective treatment is based on the assumption that acrophobia is a learned response to being in certain situations. This learned response is typically powerful, uncomfortable, embarrassing, inconvenient, and debilitating at times. And just as you can learn to have a particular response you can un-learn it.
Therapists can help people who have acrophobia to develop coping skills to manage their fear and anxiety. This involves understanding and adjusting thoughts and beliefs that help create the anxiety, learning and practicing specific behavioral social skills to increase confidence, and then slowly and gradually practicing these skills in real situations.

Cognitive behavior therapy is an approach where the person is encouraged to confront and change the specific thoughts and attitudes that lead to feelings of fear. Systematic desensitization, which is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), is a preferred behavioral technique used to treat acrophobia and other phobias. It based upon having the person relax, then imagine the components of the phobia, working from the least fearful to the most fearful. Gradual exposure to real life phobias has also been used with success to help people overcome their fears.  According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 75% of people with specific phobias overcome their fears through cognitive-behavioral therapy. 

Relaxation and stress relief techniques are frequently an accompaniment to other therapeutic approaches.  Relaxation techniques may include things like specific ways of breathing, muscle relaxation training, guided mental imagery, or soothing self-talk.

Anti-anxiety and anti-depressive medications are sometimes used to help relieve the symptoms associated with acrophobia. Though medication doesn't solve the whole problem, it can reduce anxiety so the person can more easily deal with their problem. Drugs such as tranquilizers and anti-depressants and drugs known as beta blockers may be used to treat the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as a pounding heart.

Hypnotherapy can also be effective.  This usually consists of systematic desensitization and other therapeutic techniques conducted under hypnosis by a clinical hypnotherapist.