specific phobia
an anxiety disorder, formerly called simple phobia, characterized by a marked and persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation (e.g., dogs, blood, flying, heights). The fear is traditionally defined as excessive or unreasonable and is invariably triggered by the presence or anticipation of the feared object or situation, which is either avoided or endured with marked anxiety or distress. In DSM–IV–TR, specific phobias are classified into five subtypes: (a) animal type, which includes fears of animals or insects (e.g., cats, dogs, birds, mice, ants, snakes); (b) natural environment type, which includes fears of entities in the natural surroundings (e.g., heights, storms, water, lightning); (c) blood-injection-injury type, which includes fears of seeing blood or an injury and of receiving an injection or other invasive medical procedure; (d) situational type, which includes fear of
public transportation, elevators, bridges, driving, flying, enclosed places (see claustrophobia), and so forth; and (e) other type, which includes fears that cannot be classified under any of the other subtypes (e.g., fears of choking, vomiting, or contracting an illness; children’s fears of clowns or loud noises). DSM–5 retains these subtypes, but it omits the traditional characterization that each fear type must be excessive or unreasonable to meet diagnostic criteria, stipulating instead that the fear must arise out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the feared object or situation or to its context. A fear of loud noises, for example, would be considered understandable if experienced in the context of a war zone and thus would not qualify as a specific phobia.