I have elevator phobia. Do you have any suggestions to help?

Answer 1

A fear of elevators is a phobia is very well suited to a behavioral therapy. Try this. Say you are walking down the street and there is an elevator in this building you are passing. Go inside and look at the elevator doors. Don't get on, it's not even your building! But look at the doors until you are actually more bored with it than nervous. If it takes more than a minute or two, stop and next time try not being as close to where the elevator is. Basically find the distance that is right, one that makes you a little nervous but that will go away with a minute or two of staring.

Do this a lot. When you get to where being close to the elevator is less of a problem start being closer until you can beat that distance. Before too long probably you can discover that elevators are really just boring from the outside.

Then the next time you work on this push the button and leave. Do this until it's not scary and is just dull. Or maybe even exciting if you get to realizing that this slow get-used-to-it approach is working.

But basically get closer and closer to walking in and then to riding one floor and then...

Like I said elevators have been found to respond well to this kind of approach.

Also figure out whether you are more nervous in a crowded or an empty elevator. And start working with elevators that don't have a lot of people hanging around them if crowds make it worse. And the other way around, etc.

Hope it works. Breathe calmly, try to stay dignified. Leave the situation if you realize you are about to need to leave and it will be undignified. This will help you measure the little steps of progress. You're not leaving when you have to run off. You are leaving when it's damn well time.

Answer 2

The two easiest and cheapest ways: 1- Immersion Therapy. Just bite the bullet and get on an elevator and stay on it. Ride it up and down and up and down for a long time. The purpose of this is twofold: A) you can only be in a state of heightened fear for so long. Eventually your fear state will lesson and as it does you start to recognize that B) your fear is ridiculous/unwarranted. As you ride the elevator for 20 minutes or so and nothing happens, you realize that your fear is irrational and just 'get over it'. This is the quickest way, though it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

The second is Systematic Desensitization: Start a list with 7 - 10 lines. Starting at line 7, let's say, you write the least stress inducing activity you can think of that has to do with elevators. For example, merely hearing the word elevator spoken. Line 6, thinking about riding on an elevator. Line 5 watching a movie and seeing someone get on an elevator. Line 4 going to a hotel and watching people get on/off an elevator. Line 3 walking onto an elevator and walking right back off. Line 2 walking onto an elevator on the ground floor and just standing there thinking about riding the elevator. Line 1 getting on an elevator and riding it.

Now what you do is perform each level until you can do it without stress/anxiety before moving onto the next level. If you 'freak out' at line 5, then you go back and do line 6 again until always calm, then progress. The idea is that you systematically lesson your fear of elevators - or whatever else it is that one might fear. This can take a long time or a short time, depending on how quickly you are able to reduce your anxiety at each level. So maybe it takes longer for you, but this is something that you can do yourself and is free.

Answer 3

You could probably try to speak with a psychiatrist/psychologist about this one, since they could help you much better than I am able to.
But, answering your question... I would try to face it head on. Use an elevator everytime you have to go up to the next level, to gradually alleviate your fear.
I mean, it depends on what you're afraid of regarding elevators.
Is it the fear of being trapped in an elevator?
If it is, you could try to make sure there are always people with you when you get on one, and you should always have a cell phone with you as a sort of safety blanket, and the number of the building that the elevator is located in. Or you could always take the stairs instead. This is a pretty difficult one to answer, but I hope I helped!
And good luck with your phobia.

Answer 4

I all so have it to .I finely got over it ween ,I stared working for the
hospital my job ,I have to ride the elevator a lot it dose it batter
ever time you get on .

Answer 5

phobia (from the Greek φόβος "fear"), is a strong, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. When the fear is beyond one's control, or if the fear is interfering with daily life, then a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made.


Prevalence
Phobias (in the clinical meaning of the term) are the most common form of anxiety disorders. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 8.7% and 18.1% of Americans suffer from phobias. [2] Broken down by age and gender, the study found that phobias were the most common mental illness among women in all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25.

Other uses of term
Phobia is also used in a non-medical sense for aversions of all sorts. These terms are usually constructed with the suffix -phobia. A number of these terms describe negative attitudes or prejudices towards the named subjects. See Non-clinical uses of the term below.

Clinical phobias
Most psychologists and psychiatrists classify most phobias into three categories:

Social phobias – fears involving other people or social situations such as performance anxiety or fears of embarrassment by scrutiny of others, such as eating in public. The symptoms may extend to psychosomatic manifestation of physical problems. For example, sufferers of paruresis find it difficult or impossible to urinate in reduced levels of privacy. That goes beyond mere preference. If the condition triggers, the person physically cannot empty their bladder.
Specific phobias – fear of a single specific panic trigger such as spiders, dogs, elevators, water, flying, catching a specific illness, etc.
Agoraphobia – a generalized fear of leaving home or a small familiar 'safe' area, and of possible panic attacks that might follow. Agoraphobia is the only phobia regularly treated as a medical condition.
In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), social phobia, specific phobia, and agoraphobia are sub-groups of anxiety disorder.

Many of the specific phobias, such as fear of dogs, heights, spider bites and so forth, are extensions of fears that a lot of people have. People with these phobias specifically avoid the entity they fear.

Many specific phobias can be traced back to a specific triggering event, usually a traumatic experience at an early age. Social phobias and agoraphobia have more complex causes that are not entirely known at this time. It is believed that heredity, genetics, and brain chemistry combine with life-experiences to play a major role in the development of anxiety disorders and phobias.

Phobias vary in severity among individuals. Some individuals can simply avoid the subject of their fear and suffer only relatively mild anxiety over that fear. Others suffer fully-fledged panic attacks with all the associated disabling symptoms. Most individuals understand that they are suffering from an irrational fear, but are powerless to override their initial panic reaction.

Treatment
Some therapists use virtual reality or imagery exercise to desensitize patients to the feared entity. These are parts of systematic desensitization therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial. Cognitive behavioral therapy lets the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns. CBT may be conducted in a group setting. Gradual desensitization treatment and CBT are often successful, provided the patient is willing to endure some discomfort and to make a continuous effort over a long period of time. Learning how to let the mind relax is one of the most important steps in this process.

Anti-anxiety or anti-depression medications can be of assistance in many cases. Benzodiazepines could be prescribed for short-term use.

These treatment options are not mutually exclusive. Often a therapist will suggest multiple treatments.


Non-psychological conditions
The term hydrophobia, or fear of water, is usually not a psychological condition at all, but another term for the disease rabies, referring to a common symptom. Likewise, photophobia is a physical complaint. Aversion to light due to inflamed eyes or excessively dilated pupils does not necessarily indicate photophobia.

Answer 6

Take the stairs.