ABSTRACT
Phobias involve fears of things that are not “really” dangerous. To diagnose a phobic illness, however, you need to make sure there are no deficits in reality testing; no deficits in integration; no deficits in abstraction; no deficits in capacities for warmth, empathy, trust, and closeness; and no severe deficits in impulse control or containment of bizarre fantasies. If there are deficits in those functions, the diagnosis slides from phobia into borderline psychosis or overt paranoid psychosis.
