Acrophobia, also known ashypsophobia, is an extreme or irrationalfear orphobia of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up. It belongs to a category ofspecific phobias, called space and motion discomfort, that share similar causes and options for treatment.
Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as thefear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have ahead for heights. A head for heights is advantageous for hiking or climbing in mountainous terrain and also in certain jobs such assteeplejacks or wind turbine mechanics.
People with acrophobia can experience apanic attack in high places and become too agitated to get themselves down safely. Approximately 2–5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men.[2] The term is from theGreek:ἄκρον,ákron, meaning "peak, summit, edge" andφόβος,phóbos, "fear". The term "hypsophobia" derives from the Greek wordύψος (hypsos), meaning "height". InModern Greek, the actual term used for this condition is "υψοφοβία" (hypsophobia).
This sectionneeds expansion with: sources showing that acrophobia and vertigo are confused. You can help byadding to it.(April 2023)
"Vertigo" is often used 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, by looking straight up at a high place or tall object, or even by watching something (i.e. a car or a bird) go past at high speed, 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 calledheight vertigo when the sensation of vertigo is triggered by heights.
Height vertigo is caused by a conflict between vision,vestibular andsomatosensory senses.[3] This occurs whenvestibular andsomatosensory systems sense a body movement that is not detected by the eyes. More research indicates that this conflict leads to bothmotion sickness and anxiety.[4][5][6] Confusion may arise in differentiating between height vertigo and acrophobia due to the conditions' overlapping symptom pools, including body swaying and dizziness. Further confusion can occur due to height vertigo being a direct symptom of acrophobia.[7]
Traditionally, acrophobia has been attributed, like other phobias, toconditioning or atraumatic experience. Recent studies have cast doubt on this explanation.[8][6] Individuals with acrophobia are found to be lacking in traumatic experiences. Nevertheless, this may be due to the failure to recall the experiences, as memory fades as time passes.[9] To address the problems of self report and memory, a large cohort study with 1000 participants was conducted from birth; the results showed that participants with less fear of heights had more injuries because of falling.[10][6] PsychologistsRichie Poulton, Simon Davies, Ross G. Menzies, John D. Langley, and Phil A. Silva sampled subjects from theDunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who had been injured in a fall between the ages of 5 and 9, compared them to children who had no similar injury, and found that at age 18, acrophobia was present in only 2 percent of the subjects who had an injurious fall but was present among 7 percent of subjects who had no injurious fall (with the same sample finding that typicalbasophobia was 7 times less common in subjects at age 18 who had injurious falls as children than subjects that did not).[11]
More studies have suggested a possible explanation for acrophobia is that it emerges through accumulation of non-traumatic experiences of falling that are not memorable but can influence behaviours in the future. Also, fear of heights may be acquired when infants learn to crawl. If they fell, they would learn the concepts about surfaces, posture, balance, and movement.[6] Cognitive factors may also contribute to the development of acrophobia. People tend to wrongly interpret visuo-vestibular discrepancies as dizziness and nausea and associate them with a forthcoming fall.[12] Experiencing these cognitive factors while associating them with the idea of falling may be enough to cause the same fear that would be expected after a traumatic fall.
A fear of falling, along with afear of loud noises, is one of the most commonly suggested inborn or "non-associative" fears. The newer non-association theory is that a fear of heights is an evolved adaptation to a world where falls posed a significant danger. If this fear is inherited, it is possible that people can get rid of it by frequent exposure of heights in habituation. In other words, acrophobia could be associated with a lack of exposure to heights in early life.[13] The degree of fear varies, and the termphobia is reserved for those at the extreme end of the spectrum. Researchers have argued that a fear of heights is an instinct found in many mammals, including domestic animals and humans. Experiments usingvisual cliffs have shown humaninfants andtoddlers, as well as other animals of various ages, to be reluctant in venturing onto a glass floor with a view of a few meters of apparent fall-space below it.[14] Although human infants initially experienced fear when crawling on the visual cliff, most of them overcame the fear through practice, exposure and mastery and retained a level of healthy cautiousness.[15] While an innate cautiousness around heights is helpful for survival, extreme fear can interfere with the activities of everyday life, such as standing on aladder orchair, or even walking up a flight ofstairs. It is uncertain if acrophobia is related to the failure to reach a certain developmental stage. Besides associative accounts, adiathetic-stress model is also very appealing for considering both vicarious learning and hereditary factors such as personality traits (i.e., neuroticism).
Another possible contributing factor is a dysfunction in maintaining balance. In this case, the anxiety is both well-founded and secondary. The human balance system integratesproprioceptive,vestibular and nearby visual cues to reckon position and motion.[16][17] As height increases, visual cues recede and balance becomes poorer in people without acrophobia.[18] However, most people respond to such a situation by shifting to more reliance on theproprioceptive andvestibular branches of the equilibrium system.
Some people are known to be more dependent on visual signals than others.[19] People who rely more on visual cues to control body movements are less physically stable.[20][6] An acrophobic, however, continues to over-rely on visual signals, whether because of inadequate vestibular function or incorrect strategy. Locomotion at a high elevation requires more than normal visual processing. Thevisual cortex becomes overloaded, resulting in confusion. Some proponents of the alternative view of acrophobia warn that it may be ill-advised to encourage acrophobics to expose themselves to height without first resolving the vestibular issues. Research is underway at several clinics.[21] Recent studies found that participants experienced increased anxiety not only when the height increased, but also when they were required to move sideways at a fixed height.[22]
A recombinant model of the development of acrophobia is very possible, in which learning factors, cognitive factors (e.g. interpretations), perceptual factors (e.g. visual dependence), and biological factors (e.g.heredity) interact to provoke fear or habituation.[6]
ICD-10 andDSM-5 are used to diagnose acrophobia.[23] Acrophobia Questionnaire (AQ) is a self report that contains 40 items, assessing anxiety level on a 0–6 point scale and degree of avoidance on a 0–2 point scale.[24][25] The Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaires (ATHQ)[26] and Behavioural Avoidance Tests (BAT) are also used.[6]
However, acrophobic individuals tend to have biases in self-reporting. They often overestimate the danger and question their abilities of addressing height relevant issues.[27] A Height Interpretation Questionnaire (HIQ) is a self-report to measure these height relevant judgements and interpretations.[25] The Depression Scale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short form (DASS21-DS) is a self report used to examine validity of the HIQ.[25]
Traditional treatment of phobias is still in use today. Its underlying theory states that phobic anxiety is conditioned and triggered by a conditional stimulus. By avoiding phobic situations, anxiety is reduced. However, avoidance behaviour is reinforced throughnegative reinforcement.[6][28] Wolpe developed a technique calledsystematic desensitization to help participants avoid "avoidance".[29] Research results have suggested that even with a decrease in therapeutic contact, desensitization is still very effective.[30] However, other studies have shown thattherapists play an essential role in acrophobia treatment.[31] Treatments like reinforced practice andself-efficacy treatments also emerged.[6]
There have been a number of studies into usingvirtual reality therapy for acrophobia.[32][33] Botella and colleagues[34] and Schneider[34] were the first to use VR in treatment.[6] Specifically, Schneider utilised inverted lenses in binoculars to "alter" the reality. Later in the mid-1990s, VR became computer-based and was widely available for therapists. A cheap VR equipment uses a normal PC withhead-mounted display (HMD). In contrast,VRET uses an advancedcomputer automatic virtual environment (CAVE).[35] VR has several advantages overin vivo treatment:[6] (1) therapist can control the situation better by manipulating the stimuli,[36] in terms of their quality, intensity, duration and frequency;[37] (2) VR can help participants avoid public embarrassment and protect their confidentiality; (3) therapist's office can be well-maintained; (4) VR encourages more people to seek treatment; (5) VR saves time and money, as participants do not need to leave the consulting room.[35]
Many different types of medications are used in the treatment of phobias like fear of heights, including traditional anti-anxiety drugs such asbenzodiazepines, and newer options such asantidepressants andbeta-blockers.[38]
Approximately 2–5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men.[40]
A related, milder form of visually triggered fear or anxiety is calledvisual height intolerance (vHI).[41] Up to one-third of people may have some level of visual height intolerance.[41] Pure vHI usually has smaller impact on individuals compared to acrophobia, in terms of intensity of symptoms load, social life, and overall life quality. However, few people with visual height intolerance seek professional help.[42]
^Bles, Willem; Kapteyn, Theo S.; Brandt, Thomas; Arnold, Friedrich (1 January 1980). "The Mechanism of Physiological Height Vertigo: II. Posturography".Acta Oto-Laryngologica.89 (3–6):534–540.doi:10.3109/00016488009127171.ISSN0001-6489.PMID6969517.
^Menzies, RG; Clarke, JC (1995). "The etiology of acrophobia and its relationship to severity and individual response patterns".Behaviour Research and Therapy.33 (31):499–501.doi:10.1016/0005-7967(95)00023-Q.PMID7677717. 7677717.
^Poulton, Richie; Davies, Simon; Menzies, Ross G.; Langley, John D.; Silva, Phil A. (1998). "Evidence for a non-associative model of the acquisition of a fear of heights".Behaviour Research and Therapy.36 (5):537–544.doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(97)10037-7.ISSN0005-7967.PMID9648329.
^Davey, Graham C.L.; Menzies, Ross; Gallardo, Barbara (1997). "Height phobia and biases in the interpretation of bodily sensations: Some links between acrophobia and agoraphobia".Behaviour Research and Therapy.35 (11). Elsevier BV:997–1001.doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(97)10004-3.ISSN0005-7967.PMID9431729.
^Poulton, Richie;Waldie, Karen E; Menzies, Ross G; Craske, Michelle G; Silva, Phil A (1 January 2001). "Failure to overcome 'innate' fear: a developmental test of the non-associative model of fear acquisition".Behaviour Research and Therapy.39 (1):29–43.doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(99)00156-4.ISSN0005-7967.PMID11125722.
^Gibson, Eleanor J.; Walk, Richard D. (1960)."The "Visual Cliff"".Scientific American. No. 202. pp. 67–71. Archived fromthe original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved13 May 2013.
^Campos, Joseph J.; Anderson, David I.; Barbu-Roth, Marianne A.; Hubbard, Edward M.; Hertenstein, Matthew J.; Witherington, David (1 April 2000). "Travel Broadens the Mind".Infancy.1 (2):149–219.doi:10.1207/S15327078IN0102_1.PMID32680291.S2CID704084.
^Jacob, Rolf G; Woody, Shelia R; Clark, Duncan B; et al. (December 1993). "Discomfort with space and motion: A possible marker of vestibular dysfunction assessed by the situational characteristics questionnaire".Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment.15 (4):299–324.doi:10.1007/BF00965035.ISSN0882-2689.S2CID144661241.
^Brandt, T; F Arnold; W Bles; T S Kapteyn (1980). "The mechanism of physiological height vertigo. I. Theoretical approach and psychophysics".Acta Otolaryngol.89 (5–6):513–523.doi:10.3109/00016488009127169.PMID6969515.
^Coelho, Carlos M.; Santos, Jorge A.; Silva, Carlos; Wallis, Guy; Tichon, Jennifer; Hine, Trevor J. (9 November 2008). "The Role of Self-Motion in Acrophobia Treatment".CyberPsychology & Behavior.11 (6):723–725.doi:10.1089/cpb.2008.0023.hdl:10072/23304.ISSN1094-9313.PMID18991529.
^Cohen, David Chestney (1 January 1977). "Comparison of self-report and overt-behavioral procedures for assessing acrophobia".Behavior Therapy.8 (1):17–23.doi:10.1016/S0005-7894(77)80116-0.ISSN0005-7894.
^Abelson, James L.; Curtis, George C. (1 January 1989). "Cardiac and neuroendocrine responses to exposure therapy in height phobics: Desynchrony within the 'physiological response system'".Behaviour Research and Therapy.27 (5):561–567.doi:10.1016/0005-7967(89)90091-0.hdl:2027.42/28207.ISSN0005-7967.PMID2573337.
^Baker, Bruce L.; Cohen, David C.; Saunders, Jon Terry (February 1973). "Self-directed desensitization for acrophobia".Behaviour Research and Therapy.11 (1):79–89.doi:10.1016/0005-7967(73)90071-5.PMID4781961.
^Williams, S. Lloyd; Dooseman, Grace; Kleifield, Erin (1984). "Comparative effectiveness of guided mastery and exposure treatments for intractable phobias".Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.52 (4):505–518.doi:10.1037/0022-006X.52.4.505.ISSN1939-2117.PMID6147365.
^Coelho, Carlos; Alison Waters; Trevor Hine; Guy Wallis (2009). "The use of virtual reality in acrophobia research and treatment".Journal of Anxiety Disorders.23 (5):563–574.doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.01.014.PMID19282142.
^abBotella, C.; Baños, R. M.; Perpiñá, C.; Villa, H.; Alcañiz, M.; Rey, A. (1 February 1998). "Virtual reality treatment of claustrophobia: a case report".Behaviour Research and Therapy.36 (2):239–246.doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(97)10006-7.ISSN0005-7967.PMID9613029.
^abKrijn, Merel; Emmelkamp, Paul M. G.; Biemond, Roeline; de Wilde de Ligny, Claudius; Schuemie, Martijn J.; van der Mast, Charles A. P. G. (1 February 2004). "Treatment of acrophobia in virtual reality: The role of immersion and presence".Behaviour Research and Therapy.42 (2):229–239.doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(03)00139-6.ISSN0005-7967.PMID14975783.
^Choi, Young H.; Jang, Dong P.; Ku, Jeong H.; Shin, Min B.; Kim, Sun I. (1 June 2001). "Short-Term Treatment of Acrophobia with Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT): A Case Report".CyberPsychology & Behavior.4 (3):349–354.doi:10.1089/109493101300210240.ISSN1094-9313.PMID11710259.
^Morina, Nexhmedin; Ijntema, Hiske; Meyerbröker, Katharina; Emmelkamp, Paul M. G. (1 November 2015). "Can virtual reality exposure therapy gains be generalized to real-life? A meta-analysis of studies applying behavioral assessments".Behaviour Research and Therapy.74:18–24.doi:10.1016/j.brat.2015.08.010.ISSN0005-7967.PMID26355646.
^abArroll, Bruce; Wallace, Henry B.; Mount, Vicki; Humm, Stephen P.; Kingsford, Douglas W. (3 April 2017). "A systematic review and meta-analysis of treatments for acrophobia".The Medical Journal of Australia.206 (6):263–267.doi:10.5694/mja16.00540.ISSN1326-5377.PMID28359010.S2CID9559825.
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