A phobia is an irrational and compulsive fear of something or someone.
Phobia is a term that comes from Greek and its application is linked to fear . To be in the presence of a phobic condition, according to its definition, one must register an irrational compulsive fear or experience an obsessive aversion , either towards an object, a situation, an insect or a person, among others.
In most cases, the person who suffers from some type of phobia presents symptoms of anxiety and stress because, despite being aware that the fear they experience of certain things or circumstances is excessive, they cannot stop feeling it.
On the other hand, it is important to highlight that the term can also be applied to other specific cases that are not necessarily linked to fear. Photophobia , for example, refers to a visual problem where light can cause inflammation or dilation of the pupil .
Different types of phobias
In general, it can be said that phobias arise from a traumatic experience . In this sense, it may happen that a person who was scratched by a rabid cat in his childhood ends up being ailurophobic , that is, phobic of that type of animal.
However, there is a long list of phobias, many well known and others not so well known that they are surprising. Among them we can highlight acrophobia, which is the fear of heights; androphobia, which is the fear of men; astraphobia , which is the fear of storms; cynophobia , which can be defined as the fear of dogs; or nyctophobia , which is the fear of the dark .
Among the most peculiar or unique phobias we can find the following:
Aporophobia , which is hatred or fear of poor people.
Aurophobia , which can be defined as the fear of money and gold.
Coulrophobia . It is that phobia that people who have a real fear of clowns have.
Erotophobia . This is described as the fear that a person has of being asked questions of a certain sexual nature.
Lalophobia is the fear of speaking.
Levophobia . This term can be defined as the panic that someone feels towards what is the left side.
Paraskavedekatriaphobia . This concept, so complicated to pronounce, is used to define the fear that some people feel towards the date of Friday the 13th.
Postocalytrophobia . The fear of condoms is what defines this term.
There are multiple types of phobias.
Beyond medicine
Among the most common phobias are agoraphobia (whose symptom is the fear of public places), arachnophobia (rejection of spiders), acrophobia (fear of heights) and claustrophobia (fear of closed places).
On the other hand, terms such as xenophobia , francophobia or homophobia cannot be framed within the field of medicine since they are associated with a negative attitude towards a certain category of people.
Phobia Group
Finally, and in addition to everything stated above, we cannot ignore the fact that Fobia is also the name of a rock group from Mexico .
This band, whose origins date back to the 1980s, went on hiatus but returned to the stage in 2012.