Ananya Sood Remedial for Missed Quiz 6 Why Do We Develop Certain Irrational Phobias? Katherina K. Hauner, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, attempts to answer the posed question by Andrew Watts and decipher the prominent causes of different phobias and in her answer, suggests different treatments to these phobias. She begins her article by highlighting the fight or flight response which is predominantly caused by fear. Fear is normally considered a reaction to a stimulus. This stimulus is one that immediately threatens a person's safety and security. The author distinguishes this response to threatening stimuli with maladaptive reactions, which are known as irrational fears or phobias.  According to Butcher, Phobias come under the diagnostic category of anxiety disorders, which are broadly divided into 5 different categories. The first is Specific phobias, also focused on in Katherina's articl...