The world's most common human phobias

Our daily life, whether we like it or not, is associated with various stresses. On one side are physical stimuli, on the other side are mental stimuli.

Many stressful situations can lead to psychological traumas, fears and phobias that stay with us indefinitely. It happens that such conditions can “pass” on their own, and sometimes the intervention of specialists is required. We tell you about phobias that some people face every day.

Phobias – a mental disorder in which a person finds himself in an anxious state of constantly pursued fear for no particular reason. This reaction of the body can be triggered by certain objects, actions or circumstances. Despite the fact that this feeling is irrational and often has no basis, it is unstoppable. To date, scientists have identified and described more than 500 different types of phobias.

transpersonal psychologist and hypnotherapist

A phobia may not necessarily haunt us from childhood, it can be acquired over the years. It is a very living process. Such a condition can strengthen or disappear through certain traumatic experiences. It can also be replaced by other experiences or fears. It’s also possible for them to worsen over the years.

Ataxophobia – fear of dirt

People who have this fear are afraid of dirt in any form. In the moment is expressed in the form of increased nervousness, and sometimes nervous fits with possible aggression.

Haptophobia – fear of touching

Often when describing this phobia, you can meet other names: aphephobia or tixophobia. Either way, it all boils down to the fact that this is a fear of touch from the people around you. The fear extends not only to random passersby, but also to loved ones (in the case of severe phobia). Specialists explain haptophobia by the desire to protect their personal space.

Anthropophobia – fear of people

This kind of fear is sometimes considered synonymous with sociophobia. It is often in symbiosis with fear of criticism and low self-esteem. People suffering from anthropophobia are constantly in a compulsive state of dislike and stress when interacting with people, especially strangers.

Vestiphobia is a fear of clothes

People who have this kind of fear prefer to wear the minimum amount of clothing on themselves. For them, the ideal solution is to walk around naked. Some people feel that clothes are too restrictive, while others strongly dislike touching their skin.

There are cases when vestiphobia manifests itself in the form of severe allergies.

To cope with fear and anxiety helps sports. How it works, told together with a psychologist at the link below.

Eisoptrophobia – fear of reflection in the mirror

In everyday life, it is difficult to avoid situations where we accidentally encounter our reflection. And it may not necessarily be reflections in mirrors. This becomes quite a serious problem for some people. In the presence of a severe form of the disease, a person can not tolerate his or her appearance in photographs.

Phengophobia – fear of sunlight

This may seem like more of a joke and a real life vampire story. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. At times you can meet people for whom it is more comfortable to do any activity during the dark hours of the day. During the day, they either sleep or hide in dark rooms.

Vinophobia – fear before drinking wine

Such human behavior can be explained by the explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms Bleicher and Crook, which states that it is a compulsive fear of drinking wine.

Alyona: It is possible to live with any phobia if we know about it, understand and accept it. Especially if it doesn’t bother us. Vinophobia has another format of deviation – fear of taking juices and any products that have the property of fermentation. In this case, there is another fear – the fear of spoiled products, especially, liquids, which through fermentation can change into the state of alcohol.

In the case of everyone around drinking wine, this will not necessarily scare a person away. Rather, what will frighten him is that he may be spiked with wine, forced to drink for company, or accidentally told that “there” is juice. The person is afraid of being cheated, and this affects the feeling of being in a group.

Therefore, people with vinophobia usually label their glasses, do not consume products that have been standing in the sun for more than an hour or have been in the refrigerator for more than a day (juices, for example).

Herophobia is a fear or aversion to happiness

Phobias are designed to prevent a person from quietly enjoying life, and in this case they cross all boundaries. So, the owners of this fear are not necessarily in a bad mood all the time and do not always forbid themselves to enjoy certain moments of existence. They simply avoid activities that can make them happy or make them happy. Concert venues, eating places, sports grounds, traveling – it’s not about them.

Alyona: Herophobia is a pretty popular topic today. Nowadays people are ashamed to rejoice a lot, ashamed to greet the sun or the day with a smile. In general, all fears and phobias have become very active and aggravated in the spring of 2020. So aversion to happiness is like a defense reaction: not to see happiness because we don’t deserve it.

You have to contact such people in a certain way – you have to behave as usual. If a person says they are “disgusted”, just don’t bring up these topics.

Gravidophobia – fear of meeting a pregnant woman or being pregnant

In theory, even the most aggressive representatives of the “childfree” philosophy justify themselves by the fact that they have gravidophobia. This type of fear is rather ephemeral and can pass with time.

Trichophobia – fear of getting hair on clothing and visible surfaces

Finding a “foreign” hair on your clothes by a jealous and close-minded trichophobe is only a smaller part of this phobia. People experience tremendous discomfort at the sight of lone hairs found on nearby surfaces, and especially in a plate of food.

Philophobia is the fear of falling in love

The name of the phobia is saturated with romanticism, although in fact behind it are really large-scale psychosomatic defense processes that a person has developed after a negative or tragic love experience in the past. Phobia is quite “popular” in modern society, as its problems are raised in their work by famous cultural figures.

Claustrophobia – fear of enclosed spaces

Alyona: Nowadays cases of claustrophobia, agoraphobia and fears related to visiting places with a large number of people are becoming more frequent.

Specialist’s recommendations

When a person realizes that discomfort, anxiety, panic attacks appear, heart rate and breathing increases, then first of all it is necessary to:

check whether there is indeed a phobia – the cyclical response to the same circumstances. Often phobias are confused with a defensive reaction in stress, due to fatigue. If the manifestation is repeated and in a calm state, then we can talk about a phobia;
to realize that there is nothing scary, everything is normal, and the reaction is a manifestation of the body’s protective reaction to a traumatic experience that has developed over the years or, perhaps, after a certain moment;

to realize if the “incident” is one that I am willing to accept and live with. Does this experience traumatize me? Is it environmentally friendly to my surroundings and loved ones? “I am ready to live with it, but loved ones are not ready” – then you need to look at how much you value the opinion of your loved ones;
you need to see a professional who practices hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, psychology or NLP. You will need any tools that help you work with phobias.

All phobias are treatable. Some take longer to heal, others take longer to heal, others take faster. Sometimes phobias can be worked through, there is nothing wrong with that. But then life becomes freer, more comfortable, more open and without attachment to fears.

It is also important to be able to independently cope with your emotions and free yourself from unnecessary.

How to overcome and stop depressing thoughts, read the link below.