When Leaving the House Means Living Dangerously

June 4, 2008 — -- When Elliot Caroom moved to New York City last fall, among his worries were finding a place to live and, perhaps, running into the occasional person who might do "disturbing" things on the subway. Now, a new and more mechanical menace towers above all others.

"I didn't really think about it until a few crane incidents a few months back," Caroom said. "I'm naturally somewhat paranoid, so I started to notice more cranes, glancing upward, and at this point, it has become more serious."

Although he looks up "nervously" each time he passes by a crane, the 26-year-old graduate student acknowledges the irrationality of it all, adding that there's probably a stronger likelihood of being involved in a plane crash than a crane accident.

Still, psychologists find that such fears are fairly common, since certain aspects of big city life tend to trigger deeper anxieties.

Fred Newman, director of the White Plains Anxiety and Phobia Treatment Center, says dangerous situations that may be dramatic, involve many people at once or invoke a sense of being trapped, and are perceived by many to be "much scarier" than those situations that don't.

"Bridges, tunnels, closed-in spaces, like elevators, and large crowds are the type of places where people would be more likely to feel that way, because catastrophic things can happen," Newman said.