Question

Hello Rabbi Michael,
A question occurred to me: can distress connected to a certain person’s psychological state be considered duress that would exempt him from certain areas of Jewish law? 
Let’s take, for example, someone who lives in a community and has a serious phobia of dogs stemming, say, from a childhood trauma. Every time he sees a dog, no matter how well trained it is, he becomes paralyzed with fear and does everything he can to get away from the area. 
Now let’s suppose that this person has only one single access path to the synagogue, and alongside that path there is a fenced yard with a dog that barks at passersby. Ordinarily, most people are not bothered by this dog and just keep walking, but this person, every time he gets close to that dog, is struck by anxiety and panic, becomes frozen, and does everything he can to turn around and avoid coming near that path.
In light of the above description, would that person be considered under duress and therefore exempt from prayer in the synagogue and the Torah reading? After all, this phobia causes him extreme distress, but there is nothing physically preventing him from passing along that path.
I know this is a very general and broad question, and it is hard to give precise definitions, and every case would be judged on its own merits. But my question is whether, in principle, it would be possible to treat psychological distress as duress for the purposes of Jewish law.