Acrophobia (fear of heights): what is it and how to overcome it?

Extreme fear of heights can become pathological if it is not treated through psychotherapy.

There is a great variety of phobias; practically any situation we can imagine can become the focus of a pathological fear. Acrophobia, or the extreme fear of heights, is one such type of phobia.is one of those types of phobias that, in varying degrees of intensity, assaults some people when they are near a precipice or a steep slope, or even when they imagine it.

In this article we will see what acrophobia consists of, what symptoms it produces and what psychological intervention measures can be useful in dealing with it.

What is acrophobia?

Acrophobia is an extreme fear of heights that is to some degree incapacitating for the person who experiences it and consequently impairs quality of life. It is therefore an irrational fear, as it is not an adaptive response to a real threatening danger.

Fortunately, in urban life there are usually not as many locations where the person is exposed to places where vertigo can occur compared to natural mountain environments, but this phobia can also appear in elevators with transparent walls, rooftops, steep stairs or ladders, bridges and balconies located at high altitudes or glass floors.

Vertigo and acrophobia are not the same thing, although the former is often spoken of as a synonym for what we experience through fear of heights.

The difference lies in the fact that vertigo is, specifically, an illusion that makes us feel as if the things around us, including the ground, were spinning or shaking, causing us to lose our balance. When this occurs in a situation where one is near a cliff or similar descending void, this phenomenon is known as vertigo of height.

Thus, acrophobia is related to vertigo of heights, but technically it is not the same and, in any case, the latter can be one of the symptoms of fear of heights.

Symptoms of extreme fear of heights

As with all types of phobias, acrophobia is expressed through a series of symptoms that are expressed in specific situations. In addition, many of these symptoms are many of these symptoms are shared with the rest of pathological fears, being the source of the fear (or the source of the fear).The source of the fear (or trigger) varies the most.

Thus, the main symptoms of acrophobia are the following:

Agitation and muscular tension 2.

The incapacitating fear of heights is expressed, among other things, in the following ways a state of muscular tension which causes the whole body to shake with tremors. This occurs because the sympathetic nervous system is highly activated, causing the muscle fibers to receive more activation signals so that they are ready to react quickly.

2. Anxiety

The anticipation of accidents and misfortunes due to the presence of a precipice causes anxiety to appear, which is a state of physiological and physiological activation. is a state of physiological and cognitive activation in which the entire focus of attention is concentrated on the possible dangers. This produces discomfort and, in addition, prevents thinking as rationally as one could do in other contexts.

3. Panic

A surge of fear whereby all the person's mental activity is directed towards experiencing the mixture of sensations produced by the mixture of sensations produced by the anticipation of pain or death and, at the same time, sensory stimuli. The fear of the present situation which, in the case of acrophobia, has to do with the constant appreciation of the distance between oneself and the bottom of the cliff or slope.

When this feeling of fear is very extreme and comes abruptly, panic attacks can occur.

4. Loss of control

One of the cognitive aspects of acrophobia is loss of control, i.e. the inability to manage executive inability to manage executive processes such as attention such as attention management or the establishment of consistent plans and sequences of actions.

5. Tachycardia

The abrupt increase of the blood pulse causes, in addition, that it appears a sensation of shortness of breath.

6. Headache

Once the other symptoms have appeared, it is very common to experience a headache, produced by the changes in the Blood Pressure and by the over-activation of the nervous system..

Overcoming fear of heights

Pathological fear of heights can be treated by means of psychological intervention, thanks to which most of the symptoms will subside (although in most cases they do not disappear completely).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapies have shown to be the most effective in this regard. Specifically, exposure is widely used both in this and in other types of phobias.

Treatment of acrophobia through exposure

Exposure involves confronting the source of the fear gradually, setting simple, short-term goals.

To do this, one can physically go to high places (at first, accompanied by the psychotherapist) or use the resource of virtual reality.

Each time a goal is surpassed, such as standing near a cliff for 30 seconds, one moves on to a more complicated phase. In this way, you stop by a series of tests, ordered hierarchically hierarchically ordered according to their level of difficultyand progress is accumulated. The passage through this series of situations marks an ascending difficulty curve.

Of course, the exposure must be carried out under the supervision and guidance of a professional who is sufficiently trained in these techniques sufficiently instructed in these techniques and who is dedicated to the field of health psychology.