Phobias

Psychoanalysis, another school of psychological thought, proposes a different cause of phobias. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician, was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud believed that phobias, like many psychological disorders, were caused by unconscious desires. Unconscious desires are the desires that are unknown even to one's own mind. Freud believed that, in childhood, people were taught that some feelings, particularly aggressive and sexual ones, were wrong. As a result, a child buries these forbidden desires in his or her unconscious mind. The process of hiding these desires is called repression.

Freud believed that people were able to express unconscious desires through phobias. These desires, which they had kept hidden deep inside themselves, created anxiety and tension. That anxiety and tension had to be released in some way. The fear, anxiety, and stress that characterize a phobia were the release.