Phobia is an exaggerated feeling of fear and aversion to something or someone. The word phobia can be considered a synonymous with extreme fear.
Phobia is usually treated as a pathology, considered a psychological illness, and which causes the morbid fear, repulsion and intense anguish of something specific, a place, a condition, a feeling and etc.
Each phobia has a specific name. Example: arachnophobia (fear of spiders), claustrophobia (fear of closed places or with many people), coulrophobia (fear of clowns), acrophobia (fear of heights), catsaridaphobia (irrational fear of cockroaches), aikimophobia / aikimophobia / bellophobia (fear of needles or injections) and nyctophobia (fear of the dark).
The word phobia originated from the Greek phobos, which means "fear" or "terror".
Synonyms of Phobia
- horror
- fear
- irrational hate
- aversion
- repudiation
- dread
- abomination
- fear
Social phobia
THE social phobia it is a behavioral disorder characterized by intense fear and anxiety about keeping in touch or being part of an unknown social group.
People who suffer from social phobia cannot stand the idea of being analyzed or evaluated by others, fearing disapproval. This extreme fear ends up affecting the lives of these people, who are isolated and have great difficulties in maintaining a normal social life.
Ordinary activities such as eating, talking, walking or even writing become a challenge for people who suffer from social phobia, when they are under the eyes of a stranger.
Unlike social phobia, shyness it is a feeling shared by all human beings, at different levels and situations. In fact, shyness is quite normal when an individual is in a different or new environment, which they are not yet used to. However, the tendency is to adapt and become familiar with the new place or with new people, causing fear and insecurity to gradually disappear.
However, what distinguishes a shy person of one with social phobia are the consequences that the fear of living in society can have on the individual's life. For example, an expected behavior of an individual with social phobia would be to drop out of a course or drop out of school for fear of presenting a paper orally to the whole class.
O social phobia treatment, as with the other types of phobia, must be done and monitored by psychologists or psychiatrists, through therapy sessions or, in some cases, proper remedies for excess anxiety.
Learn more about the meaning of Social phobia.
Strange Phobia Types
- papyrophobia it's the irrational fear of roles.
- metrophobia it is the irrational fear of poems and poetry.
- Ephebophobia it is the irrational fear some people feel about being around younger people.
- Somniphobia is the fear of sleep. People with this phobia fear that they will never wake up if they fall asleep, or that they wake up with some form of mental illness.
- Onomatophobia it is the irrational fear of saying or listening to a few words.
- Phobophobia it is the "fear of being afraid". These are people who are afraid of discovering that they have some kind of phobia and that this could change their quality of life.
- Philophobiait is the "fear of love".
See also:
- Xenophobia