Giorgio NardoneA book about phobias and their treatment. lane from Italian N. Katilevskaya. – M: PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE, 2024. – 220 pp. Hugo von Hofmannsthal said: “Everything that is believed in exists.” “Both good and bad, let me add as an author,” says Giorgio Nardone. A phobia is a fictional reality that produces real effects. And fear is an emotion directly related to survival; it is our natural gift. But what happens when fear from a healthy reaction becomes pathological and transforms into anxiety, panic, phobia, turning a person’s life into a real hell? Speaking about fear and anxiety, Giorgio Nardone writes: “Everything that can benefit us can, if expressed excessively, This Shakespearean wisdom shows the other side of fear, which can mean both a healthy irreplaceable emotion and the phenomenon of pathological and panic fear. In these cases, an initially functional perception/reaction turns into a dysfunctional and disabling one. Anxiety is a manifestation of the body’s activation. threatening stimulus, goes beyond the limits of a healthy adaptive functional response and becomes counterproductive. Fear and anxiety act simultaneously, complementing each other and exerting mutual influence: if I experience something frightening, then the emotion of fear activates the anxiety mechanism, and if I experience anxiety, even in the absence of a threatening stimulus, the fear mechanism is triggered. The body's response is healthy and adaptive if none of the activated states exceeds the limits of functionality; if this happens, then the mutual circular influence between the two reactions leads to escalation, initiating a panic attack. During a panic attack, a “short circuit” is observed at the level of mental and physical processes, characterized by an increase in physiological indicators: the heart begins to beat wildly, breathing becomes difficult, intensifies electrogalvanic reflex, which leads to the circulation of electrical impulses throughout the body at a dizzying speed, and the person thinks that he is going to die or go crazy. This state is short-lived, and although it lasts only a few seconds, like a flash of lightning, it has a devastating effect. In other cases, the pathological escalation of fear and anxiety does not lead to a state of panic, but persists for a long time with a very high level of anxiety and the inability to control functioning of the body; this condition is called a “crisis of generalized anxiety disorder” and is characterized by the fact that the person constantly experiences intense fear. In both cases, the disorder has a disabling effect: the person is no longer able to remain alone or leave places where he feels calm. In 2000, the World Health Organization declared panic attacks the most common disorder, affecting more people than any other pathology. According to the organization, more than 20% of humanity suffers or has ever suffered from this disorder. Fifteen years later, the American Health Institute reported that this number had exceeded 30%. The World Psychiatric Association predicts that in the coming decades, depression will take first place among all pathologies, but it must be borne in mind that more than 70% of patients diagnosed with depression initially experienced anxiety and panic (Yapko, 1997). In addition, it must be borne in mind that phobic obsessive disorder, if not properly treated, becomes a serious chronic psychiatric pathology, for example, avoidant and dependent personality disorder or major depressive disorder. As we will see, there are different forms of disorder leading to panic, and despite their diversity All of them"