Acrophobia

Acrophobia is an intense fear to tall spaces. The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders classifies it into the Anxiety Disorders as a Specific Phobia, defined as a marked and persistent fear of clearly circumscribed objects or situations.

DSM-IV presents four subtypes of specific phobia. Acrophobia belongs to the situational type because the fear is cued by specific situations. Concretely, acrophobia is a fear of tolled spaces. The situations that acrophobias tend to avoid are elevators, staircases, airplanes, tall buildings, etc. 

The incidence of acrophobia ranges from 2% to 5% in the general population and twice as many women as men suffer from this fear. Many people with the fear of heights experience breathlessness, dizziness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, and the inability to speak or think clearly. Other symptoms of acrophobia also include a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or even a full-blown anxiety attack.

The treatments for acrophobia are drugs, hypnosis, positive thinking, gradual desensitization, psych education, breathing re-training, VR exposure, and relapse prevention.