Talk:Claustrophobia

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 September 2020 and 17 November 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lizzymckenzie.

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Untitled

Is there such a thing as the OPPOSITE of Clustrophobia?

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Surely there should be a mention under flooding about how the body (human body) is only capable of producing a certain amount of adrenaline, and how eventually the claustrophobic person(claustrophobe?) will not bbe fearful an longer? LiAm McShAnE 19:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

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what age group does claustrophobia target? What is the cause of claustrophobia?

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Is there such a thing as a "closet claustrophobic"? klenk 16:06, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean someone who is only afraid of being in closets? Or someone who is claustrophobic but won't tell anyone because they're "in the closet" about it? Or is this a joke?  :) SAH 7Oct2005

My parents just found out I was Claustrophobic, I am 24 years old. Just never thought to tell them. I have lived in the country for many years so it was never an issue till we went to NYC. So I guess there is a such thing as a closet Claustrophobic. Unknown 19 Oct 2005

Any advice on a good place to learn more about Claustrophobia?

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The statement about claustrophobia being the opposite of agoraphobia is incorrect; agoraphobia is not, as it is commonly believed, a fear of open spaces.

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The statement about agoraphobia needs to agree with the agoraphobia page.

I only get that feeling of being closed in when someone of authority is around me.

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List of fictional characters with Claustrophobia:

• Storm from X-men series.

The statement about claustrophobia being the opposite of agoraphobia is incorrect; agoraphobia is not, as it is commonly believed, a fear of open spaces.

Actually it can be. It even says in my dictionary. And in a book I read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.167.223.170 (talk) 21:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

--The etymology given for claustrophobia is incorrect. I don't see how the term could have come from 'claudo,' the verb for locking or closing; likewise it is unlikely to have come from the past participle of said verb, 'locked' or 'closed'. Rather, "claustro-" seems to be from claustra, which is Latin for door bolt or lock. By synecdoche the term certainly has the general sense of "fear of closed spaces," no argument, but the info. on 'claustro' given isn't technically correct —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.62.22 (talk) 20:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The wikipedia article for Agorophobia describes it as a fear of open spaces, yet claustrophobia in this article is said to be an incorrect term for agorophobia. Could this be any more incorrect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.41.120 (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Why doesn't this page have any pictures?

?209.78.2.70 (talk)

Take a picture of claustrophobia and they'll be happy to add it. :) Also, if you're a claustrophobe don't read The Enigma of Amigara Fault. 72.193.0.212 (talk) 17:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

How can there be a picture of claustrophobia? Isn't it just fear of being in closed spaces? You can't really take a picture it, since it's just a lot of anxiety. However, prove me wrong, because I would be very interested in finding a picture like that. Rob657 (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Rob657

How about one of the public domain images of Auschwitz's kilns with the subtitle "Claustrophobia is the irrational fear of being stuck in closed spaces such as the one imaged" 174.0.171.197 (talk) 08:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

No. There are more appropriate images out there that would be far less disrespectful like closets, caves, and elevators. --13² 15:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Not appropriate Style

The article feels like it was copied from a website, especially the "Diagnosis" section. It looks wholly different from most such Wiki articles (Im really bad at choosing the words to describe things, just a heads up.) Including an out of place external link and repeated use of the "proved very effective" in reference to studies linked. Id rewrite it but I am very bad at thinking up the words I use. 74.128.56.194 (talk) 11:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Who is Cheng?

The sentence "Cheng believes that a phobia’s roots are in this fight-or-flight response" makes absolutely no sense. There is no context on who Cheng is, and there are no references that someone could possibly follow to find out. If anyone knows where it came from, source it, or fix it. If not, it should probably be deleted. 31.216.185.139 (talk) 16:20, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

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Nonsensical sentence in section Causes, subsection Amygdala

The first sentence of the second paragraph reads "In generating a fight-or-flight response, the amygdala acts in the following way: The amygdala's anterior nuclei associated with fear each other." I'm guessing that part of that sentence - maybe a verb - was mistakenly not replaced - does any editor know what it should say? Autarch (talk) 20:49, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing the word is 'activate'. However, a bigger issue is that there is no reference to an 'anterior nuclei of the amygdala' in the actual wikipedia page on the Amygdala, or in any other scientific reference that I can find. Does the author mean the 'central nucleus of the amygdala', or the 'anterior nucleus of the thalamus'?

This originally said "The amygdala’s anterior nuclei associated with fear communicate with each other." so similar to "activate" but a little different. This definitely warrants further exploration though.

Reworking Symptoms Section

I spent a couple of days working on this section, only to have my computer reboot and lose some of the text. I think I restored most of it, but I do need to go through and make sure no edits were lost.

But in the mean time, I'd appreciate some input from the editors of the page. The symptoms section currently has some very specious information and doesn't really list any symptoms. This rewrite is my attempt to correct that. I tried to be careful to pull references for anything that pertains to my personal experiences with claustrophobia, to minimize risk of NPOV, and to document any other symptoms that I've heard of or found reference to while doing the research on the rest. Please let me know if you think any adjustments need to be made.

==Symptoms==

Claustrophobia is a situationally specific phobia. Like with other phobias, the perceptions of a person with claustrophobia have more to do with their responses than the actual danger or risk of a situation or environment they're in. This means both triggers and responses can vary greatly between individual sufferers. For some individuals a small, tight space is required to trigger a response, while for others a lack of adequate air movement or even an intrusion in personal space is all that is required. Additionally, a person can have a claustrophobic response from thinking about a triggering environment, or watching another person endure 'claustrophobic conditions'.

The different perceptions and reactions of people with claustrophobia are tied to the degree to which they respond to the two primary components of the condition; fear of restriction and fear of suffocation. Because it is an anxiety disorder, the most common symptom of claustrophobia is a panic attack, which can include heart palpitations, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath, hyperventilation, numbness, or a sense of dread. Other symptoms can occur based on what triggers the panicked response, for example, if a person fears their body is being physically restricted they may flail to free themselves from the restriction. The symptoms of a panic attack usually peak within 10 minutes, with most attacks lasting between five minutes and half an hour. If claustrophobia contributes to other phobias, like emetophobia, the symptoms of the co-morbid conditions, can overlap.

Some individuals with claustrophobia report waking up in a brief panic if their body or breathing is impeded while they are asleep. Claustrophobia can also interfere with CPAP adherence in individuals with sleep apnea. Patients undergoing dental treatment may experience an anxiety reaction separate from the fear of pain, if they have claustrophobia. The primary source(s) of their reactions can be due to the restriction of being crowded into the chair by the staff and/or being unable to breath through their mouths during the procedure. Due to correlations between sleep apnea, disrupted sleep exasperating anxiety conditions and chronic dental problems, there is speculation that claustrophobia, sleep apnea and dental anxiety have a high incidence of occurring together in the same individual.

A long-term symptom of claustrophobia is situational avoidance, where the person will actively avoid situations and environments out of a fear of causing a panicked response. This pattern of behavior can escalate, until it is causing more harm to the patients life than exposure to potential triggers might cause.

CleverTitania (talk) 01:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Reverted Edit made on 10/11/2018

This was just a bit too long for the edit summary. I reverted an anonymous edit today. Here's why:

That perception of the space factors into claustrophobic reactions does need to be documented in this article. But while I get the intent of this edit, we cannot alter the definition to include any spaces of any size. Just as we can't remove references to small spaces while addressing the claustrophobic reactions that have nothing to do with space or location and are strictly based on the perception that there isn't enough oxygen or that the body is being restricted in some way. I believe the edit I proposed earlier will actually cover these distinctions to some degree, but I realize I never did the follow-up - and no one offered any input on that update.

I am swamped with school at this exact moment - plus I hurt my shoulder which is making a week of 12+ assignments and quizzes, plus two midterms, rather hellish. But I have the necessary edits on my ToDo list and will try to get to them next week.

The second reason I reverted it is; you also can't change percentages affected to a new set of numbers without changing the reference to one which matches those figures. This study mentioned in the article has specific data (one assumes, I can't find an online source for the book being referenced), and if the data is altered, a different study or source needs to be put in its place. Which I agree is probably a good idea give the age of the resource and the likelihood that more recent studies are available online. I have also put this on my ToDo list of changes, and moved this article to the top of said list. CleverTitania (talk) 23:34, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Adding more supportive evidence to VR section

I just thought there should be more supporting evidence to support the notion that virtual reality experiences aid in decreasing feelings of claustrophobia. I found another study that used VR to do so and added a summary of the study into the section. Here is the summary:

Participant met DSM-IV criteria for two specific phobias, situational type (claustrophobia) and natural environment type (storms). She suffered from fear of closed spaces, such as buses, elevators, crowds, and planes, which began after a crowd trampled her in a shopping mall 12 years prior. In response to this event, she developed the specific phobia, natural environment type (storms) because the cause of the stampede was the racket of a big storm. Participant was assigned to two individual VR environments to distinguish the levels of difficulty in a "claustrophobic" environment, with one setting being a house and the other being an elevator. There was a total of eight sessions that were carried out over the span of 30 days, with each session lasting between 35-45 minutes. The results from this treatment proved to be successful in reducing the fear of enclosed spaces and additionally improved over the course of 3 months.

Jlexiewinn (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Since this page is about an official disorder, I would think we would only want techniques, and evidence for techniques, discussed that have significant scientific research backing them. Sample sizes of 1 or 2 people are statistically irrelevant from a scientific standpoint. This is called "anecdotal evidence" and while sometimes interesting, I don't think they contribute well to a wikipedia article on a disorder. 96.61.168.142 (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Adding to diagnosis section

I think the diagnosis section is pretty vague besides the parts describing the scale and questionnaire used to diagnose. I was thinking I could include the criteria that classifies as having a "phobia":

Diagnosis of claustrophobia usually transpires from a consultation about other anxiety-related conditions.

Certain criteria have to be met to be diagnosed with specific phobias: an interminable obstructive or excessive fear caused by the existence or anticipation of a specific situation anxiety response when stimulus is exhibited; can result in panic attacks in adults or, for children, an outburst, clinging, crying, etc. acknowledgment by adult patients that their fear stems from the anticipated threat or danger engaging in procedures to evade dreaded object or situation, or proneness to face the situation but with discomfort or anxiety the person's evasion of the object or situation impedes with everyday life and relationships

Jlexiewinn (talk) 13:53, 25 April 2019 (UTC) the phobia is continuous, usually for 6 months or longer symptoms cannot be ascribed to other underlying mental conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

References

History

A section on the history of the condition should be added Mokshafarmsanctuary (talk) 02:01, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Why is claustrophobia a fear?

If you are afraid of heights, or flying, you might be afraid of falling to your injury or death. Spiders and dogs and snakes might bite you. Social interactions might cause others to dislike you or lower their esteem for you. What is inherently dangerous about enclosed spaces that they would cause a phobia? I've wondered that ever since I first heard of claustrophobia as a kid. There were a couple of examples (trapped miners) but it could be explained better in the article. 76.84.135.75 (talk) 13:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)