I have a horror of lifts and I feel bad about this because my four-year-old daughter Lucy has developed a similar phobia. My mother was claustrophobic before either of us — so she feels guilty too. I feel particularly culpable since Linda Blair, a leading clinical psychologist, explained that “no baby is born with a phobia. Phobias are learnt ”.

While some aversions are the product of traumatic experiences — say a near-drowning incident precipitating a fear of water — there is growing acceptance that phobias aren’t just triggered by actual events, but can be passed from parent to child.

Professor Paul Salkovskis, clinical director of the Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, in South London, says that the transmission rate may be as high as 40 per cent — although he points out that the prevalence of those with “anxiety disorders with a phobic component” is around 20 per cent, regardless of these people also having phobic parents. But with three generations of women fretting over the same thing, it’s hard not to question how this transmission has occurred. Is it genetic, learnt or a combination of the two? Moreover, what can you do about it?

Lucy now insists that we keep the door unlocked in public lavatories. She panicked in a maze of mirrors because she couldn’t see the exit and she refused to play “pin the tail on the donkey” because it meant wearing an eye mask. I tackled these incidents with reassurance — she could close her eyes instead of using the mask, we would soon be out of the maze, the lavatory door would not get stuck . . . but there was an element of bluster in my responses. When I went into labour, I insisted that gas and air was offered through a mouth respirator and not a mask. On numerous occasions a precarious-looking lock (usually a turnkey or a heavy bolt) in a public lavatory will cause my pulse to quicken.

Despite this, I have tried not to appear scared in front of Lucy. My mother, who does some of the childcare, also tries to hide her fears. But when we compare notes we discover that our “phobic behaviour” is very similar. We loiter (seemingly purposefully) outside lifts waiting for an unwitting chaperone (assuming that the stairs are inaccessible, because in all scenarios including appointments on the top floor, the stairs always win) and we both check the lock before closing the loo door.

My mother, an otherwise confident person, believes her claustrophobia was the result of the Blitz. “I was 3 at the time and we had to hide under the table in the basement when the sirens went off.”

Studies of this period reveal that the extent to which children were fearful depended on how frightened their mothers appeared to be during air raids. Apparently, my grandmother was “paralysed with fear” and my mother picked up on this.

Professor Peter Muris, of the Institute of Psychology at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, similarly reports a direct relationship between the fearfulness of modern-day mothers and the levels of apprehension in their children.

The children who display the highest fear levels are the ones with the most overtly fearful mothers. My mother tried to hide her anxiety during my childhood but I recollect an incident in a carwash when, having put the token in, my father stepped out of the vehicle unaware that the car would go through without him.

My mother felt trapped. I recall flaying arms, hands clawing at windows and anxious cries. The incident has become exaggerated over time — in my head I see it as a sort of benign version of the shower scene in Psycho. Given this memory, it seems likely that my claustrophobia has been “learnt” from my mum.

And yet I still assert that I have not consciously shown fear in front of Lucy. But apparently bravado is not enough. Linda Blair says that children between the ages of 3 and 6 are well attuned to picking up cues from their parents (particularly the parent of the same sex).

“Maybe the mother’s back is more rigid, or her eyes dart around, perhaps she breathes faster. A kid’s life depends on the state of alertness of their principal carer so they notice even subtle things.”

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Jan Morris, who suffers from arachnophobia, agrees: “If the kids weren’t around I would throw my hands up in horror and run out of the room but when Katie and Lucy were present I would grit my teeth and say: ‘Oh, look — a spider. Let’s put it in the garden, darling.’ Maybe I overcompensated by going on about the ‘wonderful spider’. Although I tried to outwit them by not showing fear, both my daughters grew up to abhor spiders.”

Studies show that animal aversions are more easily learnt than fears of, say, flowers that have little or no survival value. Indeed, monkeys raised in laboratories with no congenital fear of snakes developed an intense dread of them within a single trial simply by seeing photos of frightened monkeys juxtaposed with pictures of snakes.

I expect a fear of enclosed spaces also has evolutionary roots — it seems logical that my ancestors would not have lasted long had they spent too much time cowering in caves but this still doesn’t explain why I am afraid of lifts while my sister is not — especially given that she shared the aberrant carwash experience.

Brain scans reveal that a suspect gene may play a vital role. The serotonin transporter (Sert) gene regulates activity between the amygdala — the fear-processing hub deep in the brain — and the cingulate, an emotion-dampening centre located near the front of the brain. The Sert gene comes in two lengths — long and short (you inherit one from each parent, so you may get one long and one short version).

Dr Jim Phelps, an Americian psychiatrist, explains what happens in “long/long” Sert gene people: “When the amygdala becomes active, this control loop damps it back down: something like ‘calm down, it’s just a garden spider, we’ve seen this before, this one is not dangerous’. But in people with ‘two shorts’ the signal between the amygdala and the cingulate is not as strong and so the results might be something like: ‘Calm down, it doesn’t look like a dangerous spider, although I suppose . . .’ ”

It is improbable that the Sert gene alone is linked to phobic reactions and the concept that we might inherit genes coded for specific fears — say a gene for claustrophobia — is implausible. What the research does imply is that certain genetic variants may bias the way our brain interprets information, with anxiety being more readily triggered in short Sert people.

Ahmad Hariri, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, has demonstrated that people who have inherited either one or two copies of the short variant of the Sert gene experience greater activity in the amygdala when shown scary faces compared with long/long Sert-gene people.

I suggest to Hariri that Lucy and I are probably short-Sert people, and he agrees that we may have a genetic propensity to be hypersensitive to perceived threats (whether real or imagined) and to recognising anxiety in others. This suggests that we also have a genetic susceptibility to learn fears more readily from others — the perfect example of nature shaping nurture.

However, to say that we have short-Sert genes and are therefore phobic is a leap too far. There will be other genes, plus environmental and social factors, that will ultimately determine whether or not a person will develop a phobia.

Salkovskis suspects that several genes play a part but describes the genetic component of phobias as “extremely small”. And even given the brain science, he says that my phobia may be as much to do with learning as inheritance.

Perhaps my sister had taken several stress-free lift rides with my non-claustrophobic father before ever encountering my mum’s distress. Aware of the inoculation effect, Linda Blair says that it is important for children to spend time around “good role models” who do not share our fears. She also advises phobic parents to seek cognitive behavioural therapy, which uses desensitisation to allow patients to confront their fears and works regardless of how a phobia is acquired.

Nicky Lidbetter, of the National Phobics Society, says that phobic parents should be honest with their children. “Explain that you feel frightened, but put the fear into context by saying that this is just Mummy being silly.

“If your child is developing a phobia, try to normalise things where possible and do not reprimand them for being phobic. Many children develop phobias and the vast majority will grow out of their fears. Explain that you understand that he/she feels scared, but that there is nothing to feel scared of — support your statement with facts wherever possible.”

I intend to do much of the above — I may even contemplate treatment. Just so long as the consulting room isn’t on the 18th floor.



The National Phobics Society: 0870 1222325; www.phobics-society.org.uk
Triumph Over Phobia is a national network of self-help groups: www.triumphoverphobia.com