Being alone can make many feel uncomfortable. But to those with autophobia, being alone can bring up physical symptoms like heart racing, sweating, and an overwhelming feeling of sudden dread. Autophobia is a specific phobia that has many effects on how you live your life. Autophobia also referred to as monophobia, is the fear of being alone or abandoned. A phobia isn’t simply a fear. A phobia completely controls your life and will have long term consequences if not treated. Autophobia controls the way you live because you always will have to go places with someone else even if it is a trusted place like your own house. Autophobia has many different symptoms, causes, and treatments. Autophobia is one of many phobias that have serious consequences…show more content… One way that can lead to autophobia is a traumatic childhood event. A traumatic childhood event could range from being lost in a store, to being abandoned by your parents. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network says, ...traumas can be the result of intentional violence—such as child physical or sexual abuse, or domestic violence—or the result of natural disaster, accidents, or war.” This quote shows the many ways that a child can experience trauma that can change the way they think and behave. Another way autophobia can develop is worrying that you will end up alone in life. This severe anxiety may lead to autophobia because if you fear that you will never get married and will live your alone, you might not want to go anywhere without someone else. That worry is paralyzing and you are never comfortable being…show more content… There are a few ways that autophobia can be treated. One way is called cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy involves counseling to change the way you think. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a common type of talk therapy (psychotherapy). You work with a mental health counselor (psychotherapist or therapist) in a structured way, attending a limited number of sessions. CBT helps you become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking so you can view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way.” Cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective way to treat many mental disorders. One form of cognitive behavioral therapy is exposure therapy. Exposure therapy introduces the phobic to what they are afraid of. As stated by the American Psychological Association, “Exposure therapy is a psychological treatment that was developed to help people confront their fears…” Exposure therapy can be accomplished in different levels of intensity so you can ease the patient way into it. In an article posted by Grace College the author addresses arachnophobia, the fear of spiders stated an effective way to tackle that fear is to slowly introduce a spider to a patentiens environment eventually allowing it to crawl on a patients bare