Friday the 13th brings out scares and fears in those afraid of superstitions

KENT, Ohio – What do you fear? \nIs it spiders, enclosed spaces or flying on a plane? \nFriday the 13th, which comes at the end of this week, is a day many people associate with phobias or superstitions. \n“A phobia is a fear of a place or a particular thing,” said Michael Moore, the assistant director of the Kent State University Psychological Clinic. “It can be almost anything from a fear of heights to a fear of water.” \nPhobias are one of the most common forms of psychological pathology, Moore said. \nIn a 2004 story on National Geographic’s Web site, Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., said that an estimated “$800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do.” \nThe article also estimates that 17 to 21 million people in the United States are phobic or superstitious about the calendar date. \nThe fear of the number 13, according to the article, is deeply rooted in history within myths and biblical references. But the fear of the date or number isn’t the only phobia out there. \n“I am afraid of heights,” said senior Branden Vondrak. “I guess I just don’t want to fall down that far.” \nVondrak is not alone in his fear of heights. Moore said many people have healthy fears, but it is when that fear impairs their daily life that it becomes a concern. \n“The hallmark is that the fear is something that is somehow functionally debilitating, something that causes you difficulty in your work or difficulty in your relationships with other people,” Moore said. \nPeople can develop phobias from past negative experiences. For example, a person may develop a fear of dogs if he or she was bitten by one as a child. \n“You can be afraid of just about anything,” Moore said. “You name it, someone is afraid of it. The different fears that people have are as varied as people’s experiences.” \nAs easy as it is to develop a phobia, it is just as easy to cure it. \n“The way that you do that is to bring a person into contact with whatever they are afraid of,” Moore said. “If it’s heights, you take them to the top of a really tall building. If it is a dog, you find the biggest, scariest dog that you can and enclose them in a room with it. \n“It is a lot of really intense anxiety at first, but then it tends to drop off very quickly. Most phobias can be cured this way,” Moore said.