Phobias and Their Medical Names

There are more phobias in this world than most people would think. It is important to note that for every person, their own fears are particular to them and while people in general may feel that the fear is somewhat bizarre – or even phoney – that the person suffering from the phobia has no choice but to take it seriously. After all, it is this fear that is causing them so much strife that they have had to take big steps to avoid it.

Often, a person who keeps themselves to themselves may be marked out by those who know of them as being a little bit weird, or having something to hide. They may in actual fact suffer from Anthropophobia, a condition which causes them to fear being in the company of other people. It is a form of social anxiety, and a very real phobia, as are Androphobia and Gynophobia, fears of men and of women respectively. All of these conditions are often mistaken or misunderstood for rudeness or aloofness, and in some cases sexism. In fact, the sufferer simply has a very real fear of people, or at least a certain group of people.

An increasingly common fear, and one which is actually frequently exploited by makers of horror films and TV series, is Catoptrophobia. Meaning the fear of mirrors, or of one’s own reflection, this condition can occur for a number of reasons, including in many cases the very real fear that when you look in the mirror, you will see more than your own reflection staring back at you. This is a fear that can seriously infringe on a person’s activity, as they are reluctant to go out due to the perceived necessity of looking in the mirror while getting ready.

The same problem may befall a sufferer of Decidophobia, the fear of making decisions. Sufferers of this phobia may well not even know that it is a genuine condition, and may be mistaken for simply indecisive people or, worse, for someone who leaves other people to take the flak when a decision goes wrong. In actual fact, what a decidophobe often fears most of all is the consequences of the wrong decisions – not the criticism arising from the consequences, but that a serious and even fatal occurrence could arise from even the most banal choice.

There are numerous other phobias, and among them are Pyrophobia (fire), Emetophobia (vomiting), Panphobia (a fear of everything, or an all-encompassing fear) and perhaps most confusingly, Phobophobia (a fear of having a phobia). What every condition mentioned in this article has in common is that they have been identified and diagnosed by medical professionals, and present to their sufferers a serious degree of fear and concern which, left unchecked, can ruin a person’s life. They can also be affected by an individual looking to exploit the ambiguity that has been allowed to arise with regard to phobias. However, it is important to give people the benefit of the doubt in this respect – a real phobia can be a very damaging thing to live with.

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