Fear of surgery or other invasive medical procedure may be known as tomophobia. Fear of surgery is not a fear experienced often, but is still just as harmful as those that are more common. Since surgery is not a common occurrence, the fear is more based on inexperience or something that is out of the ordinary. This fear is one of those categorized under all fears of medical procedures that can be experienced by anyone, all ages, and have little need for actual psychological treatment, unless it is uncharacteristically causing the patient to react in a way that would be harmful to his or her health.

There are also many options for treatment of Ablutophobia. Generally seeking professional help from a person with a background in psychology is the best option. A sufferer of Ablutophobia can also undergo Exposure-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in which the person is allowed to confront the feared object (in this case, water) in controlled situations.

There are anxiety medications that medical professionals can prescribe as well, however these medications have yet to show much promise in the treatments of specific phobias such as Ablutophobia. The use of d-cycloserine (DCS) in conjunction with Exposure therapy is the only drug to show developments in alleviating the phobia-related symptoms even after a 3-month period.

As with most phobias this fear could be cured with therapy. Relaxation techniques or support groups could also be effective.

"Vertigo" is often used (incorrectly) to describe a fear of heights, but it is more accurately a spinning sensation that occurs when one is not actually spinning. It can be triggered by looking down from a high place, or by looking straight up at a high place or tall object, but this alone does not describe vertigo. True vertigo can be triggered by almost any type of movement (e.g. standing up, sitting down, walking) or change in visual perspective (e.g. squatting down, walking up or down stairs, looking out of the window of a moving car or train). Vertigo is called "height vertigo" when the sensation of vertigo is triggered by heights.

Fear of needles, especially in its more severe forms, is often comorbid with other phobias and psychological ailments; for example, iatrophobia, or an irrational fear of doctors, is often seen in needle phobic patients.

A needle phobic patient does not need to physically be in a doctor's office to experience panic attacks or anxiety brought on by needle phobia. There are many triggers in the outside world that can bring on an attack through association. Some of these are blood, injuries, the sight of the needle physically or on a screen, paper pins, examination rooms, hospitals, white lab coats, hospital gowns, doctors, dentists, nurses, the antiseptic smell associated with offices and hospitals, the sight of a person who physically resembles the patient's regular health care provider, or even reading about the fear.

BII phobia is one of the more common psychiatric disorders, affecting about 3 to 4% of the general population, and in about 80% of the BII phobia cases, the patient experiences syncope or presyncope. After a random survey was completed in Aligarh, India, with 1648 male and 1613 female, it was found that a significantly higher percentage of females compared to males had BII phobia; 23.36% of females were diagnosed with BII phobia while only 11.19% of males were diagnosed. Females also fainted more often than males, at 64.09% compared to a male rate of 39.4%.

Furthermore, only 5.3% of BII phobia patients reported to have visited the hospital once or twice for consultation about BII phobia, however, without engaging in any kind of treatment.

Another study, involving participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, ages 65 years and older, found that a total of 386 participants disclosed having BII Phobia throughout their whole lifetime, 90% of those cases consisted of patients dealing with BII Phobia as well as other lifetime fears.

The most common treatment for serious cases is behavior therapy—specifically, systematic desensitization.

Several other self-help treatments exist, mainly involving exposure therapy and relaxation techniques while driving. Additional driving training and practice with a certified teacher also help many to become more confident and less likely to suffer from anxiety.

One of the emerging methods of treating this fear is through the use of virtual therapy.

With repeated exposure, all of the subjects displayed significantly less variance from normal in heart rate acceleration, depression readings, subjective distress, and post-traumatic stress disorder ratings.

According to Child and Adolescent Mental Health, approximately 5 percent of children suffer from specific phobias and 15 percent seek treatment for anxiety-related problems. In recent years the number of children with clinically diagnosed phobias has gradually increased. Researchers are finding that the majority of these diagnoses come anxiety related phobias or society phobias.

Specific phobias are more prevalent in girls than in boys. Likewise, specific phobias are also more prevalent in older children than younger.

Patients are typically sent to therapy for BII phobia in order to receive therapeutic treatments to calm their levels of anxiety and stress. Therapists use a combination of psychological and physical measures, such as applying muscle tension, in order to help the patient to be aware that there is certainly a needle in front of them.

A popular method of treatment for BII phobics is Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT), which is a technique that allows the patient to become immune to their fear by being exposed to it. For BII phobics, patients are given pictures of needles or blood, they are also asked to draw pictures of these needles and speak about it. Afterwards, they are given an actual needle, and the goal is: by that point, that the patient is to be comfortable enough with their fear of needles and blood.

Some patients may refuse professional help for their phobia. Instead, a different type of treatment solely revolves around motivation and whether or not the patient is willing to undergo through treating their phobia with self-help. Similar to CBT, patients treat themselves by completing exercises to become immune to their fear. This requires no professional assistance and merely relies on the person.

Research on hypnotherapy has been looked upon to treat patients with BII phobia. Hypnotherapists are known for using relaxing therapies towards individuals with common anxiety issues. A form of therapy given to patients with BII phobia include the “Applied Tension” method, which was developed by Lars-Göran Öst and his colleagues at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. This “coping method involves creating tension on a person’s arms, legs, and chest until they start to feel their body temperature rising,” (Robertson) which usually occurs within 10 to 20 seconds. These sessions of muscle tension is repeated 5 times with 20 to 30 second breaks. Patients should complete this form of therapy over the course of 5 weeks. This helps to prevent the patient from fainting by applying tension to the body, the blood pressure steadily rises, preventing any sudden drop until their vaccination is complete. By using this treatment, there was a noticeable improvement by 90% of patients with BII phobia. Compared to patients that only used the relaxation methods, where only 60% showed noticeable improvement.

Along with muscle tension,there are several methods of physical maneuvers that can help with the treatment of BII phobia. Therapists suggest that while being injected, patients should perform movements, such as: leg crossing, muscle tensing, and holding in the breath. Patients are instructed by their therapist to perform these maneuvers simultaneously while being injected with a needle. It’s also recommended that the patient stays seated with their head lowered while performing these movements.

According to the fourth revision of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", phobias can be classified under the following general categories:

- Animal type – Fear of dogs, cats, rats and/or mice, pigs, cows, birds, spiders, or snakes.

- Natural environment type – Fear of water (aquaphobia), heights (acrophobia), lightning and thunderstorms (astraphobia), or aging (gerascophobia).

- Situational type – Fear of small confined spaces (claustrophobia), or the dark (nyctophobia).

- Blood/injection/injury type – this includes fear of medical procedures, including needles and injections (trypanophobia), fear of blood (hemophobia) and fear of getting injured.

- Other – children's fears of loud sounds or costumed characters.

Some desensitization treatments produce short-term improvements in symptoms. Long-term treatment success has been elusive.

Autophobia is a form of anxiety that can cause a minor to extreme feeling of danger or fear when alone. There is not a specific treatment to cure autophobia as it affects each person differently. Most sufferers are treated with psychotherapy in which the amount of time that they are alone is slowly increased. There are no conclusive studies currently that support any medications being used as treatment. If the anxiety is too intense medications have been used to aid the patient in a continuation of the therapy.

It is not uncommon for sufferers to be unaware that they have this anxiety and to dismiss the idea of seeking help. Much like substance abuse, autophobia is mental and physical and requires assistance from a medical professional. Medication can be used to stabilize symptoms and inhibit further substance abuse. Group and individual therapy is used to help ease symptoms and treat the phobia.

In mild cases of autophobia, treatment can sometimes be very simple. Therapists recommend many different remedies to make patients feel as though they are not alone even when that is the case, such as listening to music when running errands alone or turning on the television when at home, even if it is just for background noise. Using noise to interrupt the silence of isolated situations can often be a great help for people suffering from autophobia.

However, it is important to remember that just because a person may feel alone at times does not mean that they have autophobia. Most people feel alone and secluded at times; this is not an unusual phenomenon. Only when the fear of being alone beings to interrupt how a person lives their daily life does the idea of being autophobic become a possibility.

Main features of diagnostic criteria for specific phobia in the DSM-IV-TR:

- Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood).

- Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed panic attack. In children, the anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging.

- The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. In children, this feature may be absent.

- The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress.

Specific Phobia – DSM 5 Criteria

- Fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation (In children fear/anxiety can be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging)

- The phobic object or situation almost always provokes immediate fear or anxiety

- The phobic object or situation is avoided or endured with intense fear or anxiety

- The fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the specific object or situation and to the sociocultural context

- The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting for 6 months or more

- The fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning

- The disturbance is not better explained by symptoms of another mental disorder, including fear, anxiety, and avoidance of situations associated with panic-like symptoms or other incapacitating symptoms; objects or situations related to obsessions; reminders of traumatic events; separation from home or attachment figures; or social situations

Anxiety around mirrors and at all costs staying away from mirrors

Most people suffer from a form of fear of medical procedures during their life. There are many different aspects of this fear and not everyone has every part. Some of these parts include fear of surgery, fear of dental work and fear of doctors (involving fear of needles). These fears are often overlooked, but when a patient has one to the extreme it can be very damaging to their health.

Formally, medical fear is defined (by Steward and Steward, see Further reading) as "any experience that involves medical personnel or

procedures involved in the process of evaluating or modifying health status in traditional health care settings".

There are several options for treatment of scopophobia. With one option, desensitization, the patient is stared at for a prolonged period and then describes their feelings. The hope is that the individual will either be desensitized to being stared at or will discover the root of their scopophobia.

Exposure therapy, another treatment commonly prescribed, has five steps:

- Evaluation

- Feedback

- Developing a fear hierarchy

- Exposure

- Building

In the evaluation stage, the scopophobic individual would describe their fear to the therapist and try to find out when and why this fear developed. The feedback stage is when the therapist offers a way of treating the phobia. A fear hierarchy is then developed, where the individual creates a list of scenarios involving their fear, with each one becoming worse and worse. Exposure involves the individual being exposed to the scenarios and situations in their fear hierarchy. Finally, building is when the patient, comfortable with one step, moves on to the next.

As with many human health problems support groups exist for scopophobic individuals. Being around other people who face the same issues can often create a more comfortable environment.

Other suggested treatments for scopophobia include hypnotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and energy psychology. In extreme cases of scopophobia, it is possible for the subject to be prescribed anti–anxiety medications. Medications may include benzodiazepines, antidepressants, or beta-blockers.

The medical literature suggests a number of treatments that have been proven effective for specific cases of needle phobia, but provides very little guidance to predict which treatment may be effective for any specific case. The following are some of the treatments that have been shown to be effective in some specific cases.

- Ethyl Chloride Spray (and other freezing agents). Easily administered, but provides only superficial pain control.

- Jet Injectors. Jet Injectors work by introducing substances into the body through a jet of high pressure gas as opposed to by a needle. Though these eliminate the needle, some people report that they cause more pain. Also, they are only helpful in a very limited number of situations involving needles i.e. insulin and some inoculations.

- Iontophoresis. Iontophoresis drives anesthetic through the skin by using an electric current. It provides effective anesthesia, but is generally unavailable to consumers on the commercial market and some regard it as inconvenient to use.

- EMLA. EMLA is a topical anesthetic cream that is a eutectic mixture of lidocaine and prilocaine. It is a prescription cream in the United States, and is available without prescription in some other countries. Although not as effective as iontophoresis, since EMLA does not penetrate as deeply as iontophoresis-driven anesthetics, EMLA provides a simpler application than iontophoresis. EMLA penetrates much more deeply than ordinary topical anesthetics, and it works adequately for many individuals.

- Ametop. Ametop gel appears to be more effective than EMLA for eliminating pain during venepuncture.

- Lidocaine/tetracaine patch. A self-heating patch containing a eutectic mixture of lidocaine and tetracaine is available in several countries, and has been specifically approved by government agencies for use in needle procedures. The patch is sold under the trade name "Synera" in the United States and "Rapydan" in European Union. Each patch is packaged in an air-tight pouch. It begins to heat up slightly when the patch is removed from the packaging and exposed to the air. The patch requires 20 to 30 minutes to achieve full anesthetic effect. The Synera patch was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration on 23 June 2005.

- Behavioral therapy. Effectiveness of this varies greatly depending on the person and the severity of the condition. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of behavioral treatments for specific phobias (like blood, injection, injury type phobias), though some data are available to support the efficacy of approaches like exposure therapy. Any therapy that endorses relaxation methods may be contraindicated for the treatment of fear of needles as this approach encourages a drop in blood pressure that only enhances the vasovagal reflex. In response to this, graded exposure approaches can include a coping component relying on applied tension as a way to prevent complications associated with the vasovagal response to specific blood, injury, injection type stimulus.

- Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas). This will provide sedation and reduce anxiety for the patient, along with some mild analgesic effects.

- Inhalation General Anesthesia. This will eliminate all pain and also all memory of any needle procedure. On the other hand, it is often regarded as a very extreme solution. It is not covered by insurance in most cases, and most physicians will not order it. It can be risky and expensive and may require a hospital stay.

- Benzodiazepines, such as diazepam (Valium) or lorazepam, may help alleviate the anxiety of needle phobics, according to Dr. James Hamilton. These medications have an onset of action within 5 to 15 minutes from ingestion. A relatively large oral dose may be necessary.

Phobias of this sort can usually be treated by different types of therapies, including: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychotherapy, behavior therapy and exposure therapy.

Practice may play an important part in overcoming fear. It may be helpful to sufferers to increase phone usage at a slow pace, starting with simple calls and gradually working their way up. For example, they may find it easier to start with automated calls, move on to conversations with family and friends, and then further extend both the length of conversations and the range of people with whom conversations are held.

Though some fears are inborn, the majority are learned. Phobias develop through negative experiences and through observation. One way children begin to develop fears is by witnessing or hearing about dangers. Ollendick proposes while some phobias may originate from a single traumatizing experience, others may be caused by simpler, or less dramatic, origins such as observing another child’s phobic reaction or through the exposure to media that introduces phobias.

- 2% of parents linked their child’s phobia to a [direct conditioning episode]

- 26% of parents linked their child’s phobia to a [vicarious conditioning episodes]

- 56% of parents linked their child’s phobia to their child’s very first contact with water

- 16% of parents could not directly link their child’s phobia

In addition to asking about the origins of a child’s fear, the questionnaire asked if parents believed that “information associated with adverse consequences was the most influential factor in the development of their child’s phobia.” The results were as followed:

- 0% of parents though it was the most influential factor

- 14% of parents though it was somewhat influential

- 86% of parents though it had little to no influence

There are two assessment tools used to diagnose emetophobia; the Specific Phobia of Vomiting inventory and the Emetophobia Questionnaire. The Specific Phobia of Vomiting Inventory and the Emetophobia Questionnaire are both self-report questionnaires that focus on a different range of symptoms.

There have been a limited number of studies in regard to emetophobia. Victims of the phobia usually experience fear before vomiting, but feel less afterwards. The fear comes again however, if the victim fears they will throw up again.

Coping strategies may consist of planning the conversation ahead of time and rehearsing, writing or noting down what needs to be said. This may be helped by having privacy in which to make a call.

Associated avoidance behavior may include asking others (e.g. relatives at home) to take phone calls and exclusively using answering machines. The rise in the use of electronic text-based communication (the Internet, email and text messaging) has given many sufferers alternative means of communication that they tend to find considerably less stressful than the phone. However, some individuals experience "textphobia", a fear or anxiety of texting or messaging, and also avoid those forms of communication.

Sufferers may find it helpful to explain the nature of the phobia to friends, so that a failure to respond to messages is not misinterpreted as rudeness or an unwillingness to communicate.

Phobia of dental care is sometimes diagnosed using a fear measurement instrument like Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale or the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale.

The terms "distress" and "impairment" as defined by the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition" (DSM-IV-TR) should also take into account the context of the person's environment if attempting a diagnosis. The DSM-IV-TR states that if a feared stimulus, whether it be an object or a social situation, is absent entirely in an environment, a diagnosis cannot be made. An example of this situation would be an individual who has a fear of mice but lives in an area devoid of mice. Even though the concept of mice causes marked distress and impairment within the individual, because the individual does not usually encounter mice, no actual distress or impairment is ever experienced. Proximity to, and ability to escape from, the stimulus should also be considered. As the phobic person approaches a feared stimulus, anxiety levels increase, and the degree to which the person perceives they might escape from the stimulus affects the intensity of fear in instances such as riding an elevator (e.g. anxiety increases at the midway point between floors and decreases when the floor is reached and the doors open).

Exposure therapy has been proven as an effective treatment for people who have a fear of bees. It is recommended that people place themselves in a comfortable open environment, such as a park or garden, and gradually over a prolonged period of time move closer to the bees. This process should not be rushed, it may take many months spent watching bees before people feel comfortable in their presence.

Apiphobia is one of the zoophobias prevalent in young children and may prevent them from taking part in any outdoor activities. Older people control the natural fear of bees more easily. However, some adults face hardships of controlling the fear of bees.

A recommended way of overcoming child's fear of bees is training to face fears (a common approach for treating specific phobias). Programs vary.

Treatments for dental fear often include a combination of behavioral and pharmacological techniques. Specialized dental fear clinics use both psychologists and dentists to help people learn to manage and decrease their fear of dental treatment. The goal of these clinics is to provide individuals with the fear management skills necessary for them to receive regular dental care with a minimum of fear or anxiety. While specialized clinics exist to help individuals manage and overcome their fear of dentistry, they are rare. Many dental providers outside of such clinics use similar behavioral and cognitive strategies to help patients reduce their fear.

Many people who suffer from dental fear may be successfully treated with a combination of "look, see, do" and gentle dentistry. People fear what they don't understand and they also, logically, dislike pain. If someone has had one or more painful past experiences in a dental office then their fear is completely rational and they should be treated supportively. Non-graphic photographs taken pre-operatively, intra-operatively and post-operatively can explain the needed dentistry. Pharmacologic management may include an anxiety-reducing medication taken in a pill, intravenously and/or using Nitrous Oxide (laughing) gas. Most importantly is the need to provide an injection of anesthetic extremely gently. Certain parts of the mouth are much more sensitive than other parts; therefore it is possible to provide local anesthesia (a "novocaine" shot) in the less sensitive area first and then moving the injection within the zone of just-anesthetized tissue to the more sensitive area of the mouth. This is one example of how a dentist can dramatically reduce the sensation of pain from a "shot." Another idea is to allow the novocaine time (5 – 15 minutes) to anesthetize the area before beginning dental treatment.