Talk:Phobia

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[edit] Old talk

Could we please distinguish in the article and the list between psychologically-recognized phobias (not that I think the APA is god, or anything, but they at least have a process) and political terms like 'xenophobia' and 'homophobia'? The article is already admitting a distinction in the current last sentence, 'In some cases, however, a fear or hatred is only based on ignorance', but it's not very clear. --MichaelTinkler


WHat is NIMH? -- Tarquin

It's the National Institute of Medical Herbalists... I mean of Mental Health. --Camembert


What happened to the list of phobias that was once linked from this page? It now links to "-phobia" on Wiktionary, which does list some, but not very many. Wiktionary was copying the list over from Wikipedia, but now these have gone (although they can probably be recovered from the history). — Paul G 08:41, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's at -phobia, not on wiktionary. -- User:Docu

[edit] First sentence unclear to me

"Psychologists use the term phobia, which comes from the Ancient Greek word for fear (φόβος, fobos), for a number of psychological conditions that can seriously disable their carriers."

Don't understand this sentence. It can seriously disable not only the carriers of psychologists. It may even enhance their carriers if they specialize on the treatmen of phobias.

Or is this a joke?

Geraldstiehler 11:31, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And again: It's not only psychologists using this term. Physicians and even the WHO do as well. Geraldstiehler 10:29, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. Ortolan88 19:37, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Much better now! Thanks

[edit] Not what I'd call an authoritative list

The list of phobias is in serious need of editing by someone qualified on the subject. It's full of duplicates, ambiguities, and a few entries that might have been just a joke. ("Fear of the band CKY"? Is that for real?) It's also desperately in need of some basic alphabetizing. Could some professional please spend a few minutes cleaning this up?

  • I agree. A good look in the dictionary, will help. For starters: The correct words are triskaidekaphobia and paraskavedekatriaphobia. Uncle G 11:39, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)
  • I am wondering what happened to 'claustrophobia'. I was under the impression that this was the fear of enclosed spaces. However, the list states otherwise...
    • Huh? The list states "Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces." What's up? mikka (t) 8 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)

[edit] History

Any ideas who/when first used this term in (a) medical (2) non-medical senses? In general, the history of the term usage is missing. mikka (t) 23:39, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] non-clinical phobia

I was surprised with negative reaction to my separation of part of this aricle into a separate one. I did this for the simple reason of disambiguation: I found it strange that the article, e.g., Homophobia links to a medical article "phobia", which could suggest that homophobia is kind of disease (which may well be the intention of those who coined the term. I am aware that the phobia article has the section "non-medical usage of the term", but it is somewhere down the flow an not ery prominent. Therefore I did what is normal in wikipedia: I performed disambiguation. And was baffled with the vote: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Phobia (attitude)

My POV is very simple: the two usages are radically different, and this is even reflected in dictionary definitions, despite some people who evidently didn't take pain to look into one. What is the opposite? I see two possibilities.

  1. Usages are basically the same (which would I find really strange)
  2. The first usage is "normal", the second one is abuse. Which I disagree as well. The language simply "re-used" the term to describe a certain notion, which otherwise (in every "pseudo-phobia" article I listed) reuires several words: "fear or hatred", "fear and discrimination", etc.

Now, some don't like the word "attitude". What is this then? It is not disease. It is not an emotion: all articles mention discrimination or some similar actions. This is conveniently described by the word "attitude" IMO. Of course, I am not a native English speaker. You are welcome to suggest another word here. mikka (t) 15:14, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't mind the word "attitude", I just don't think it's appropriate in this context. What is described by phobia (attitude) is already covered at prejudice, discrimination, and intolerance. Meanwhile, such "phobias" are covered already in -phobia. That English would reuse a word, however, with completely opposite meanings, is not that shocking. Look up "cleave" sometime.  :-) Kol tov. Tomer TALK 15:27, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

That's my point exactly: all three are conveniently described by a single word: "phobia".
There is no regular word "-phobia". What you/we understand under "-phobia" is covered in dictionaries under "phobia". Not to say that -phobia article is one big joke and needs cleanup, together with -philia. These articles are part of series of articles about english suffixes, -philia not only puts oranges and orangs into one basket, it throws in a couple of orcs as well. mikka (t) 15:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Seeing that the main article is at -phobia, I condensed the non-clinical section, eliminating some of the trivia based materials. Perhaps some of the removed material could be added back, but preferrably to -phobia if possible. --MegaHasher 06:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prejudice

At the VfD I see someone sugested the word prejudice as a kind of synonym or additional meaning for "-phobia". IMO it is incorrect. A "-phobia" may be a result of a prejudice, but it may also be a result of mis-judgement, negative experience. Slapping the sticker "prejudice" is not better. If one would follow this logic, then nearly all our negative opinions are effectively prejudice, unless proved in the court of law, since our experience is inherently limited. (Even if they are based on opinion of experts, this does not free us from prejudiced of experts themselves).

Summary: "-phobia" may be a result of prejudice, but not prejudice itself. mikka (t) 15:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think you are confusing the what the various "non-clinical" phobia terms actually mean and how they are ysed. For example, homophobia may actually be a real phobia (there are some studes into this) and fear of homosexuals has been used as legal defenses in other situations. However, homophobia is also now used to simply describe prejudice against homosexuals without refernence to fear. Similarly, islamophobia is defined as prejudice against Islam and muslims without reference to fear or anxiety (although that is a possible sub-text). Axon 10:03, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NLP Pseudoscience Efficacy

The sentence regarding the efficacy of neuro-linguistic programming varies significantly with the extensive discrediting found in the NLP article. Phobia should be updated to regard this, and ideally, the references listed should be tracked down and verified.

[edit] Relationship with Anxiety Disorder topic

Anxiety disorder is an umbrella topic for phobia, and yet the sub-topic of phobia has so much content that it threatens to take over the whole thing. In DSM-III-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder) anxiety disorders are defined as:

This means the word 'phobia' by itsef is not a diagnosis, and the agoraphobia/socialphobia/specific phobia classification in this topic is a layman's classification. One way of fixing this topic is to point out the proper classification under anxiety disorder, and leave detailed information in the proper sub-topics.

This re-organization would cut out the redundant information, and the dictionary like contents. --MegaHasher 07:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also

  • Talk:Phobia (attitude)

[edit] More phobias

I could submit over 100 phobias onto this article. Link9er 14:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't, there are probably hundreds of thousands of them. Can you imagine what this article would look like if we tried to include them all? All people have some kind of fear, some quite irrationally so, and it might well be a never-ending list. Just a general idea of the kind of fears there are will do. Dieter Simon 23:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Indeed there is far too many - my phobia is rather stupid and pathetic, but can't find a name for it (any help appreciated) - engines failing to start!!! How do I get some help - i live in fear everytime I get into a car --wozza 16:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrational test

I believe the traditional diagnosis does not require the fear to be irrational. As long as the fear interferes with normal life, a diagnosis under one of the anxiety disorders can be made. For example, a life guard with a fear of sharks that interferes with job function can be diagnosed with Specific Phobia. --MegaHasher 17:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


The Specific Phobia diagnosis does require it to be irrational, even if it does not interfere with daily living. A lifeguard afraid of sharks in the ocean is experiencing a rational fear and is not phobic. If he/she experiences it in a community pool, that is a phobia. Often, people will seek help for phobias when it interferes with their daily living. When the businessperson is required to take airplane transportation and goes to see a psychologist for treatment it has now become a clinical issue, even though it was always irrational. --Annalisa579 17:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


I'd argue that the use of the word 'fear' is incorrect; I'd want to replace it with 'aversion'. I'm a behaviour therapist and most phobias I treat don't involve the fear of a consequence, they're more like revulsion. So spider phobia, snake phobia and vomit phobia all involve seeing the phobic object as horrible rather than dangerous. If the person sees the thing as dangerous, then I'd call it a fear, and I'd say that it's rational (even though the feared consequence might be unlikely, or the fear reaction might be disproportionate). Rational (in this sense) means 'having a reason', not 'being right'. --Alec.brady 21:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phobia vs. Addiction

Is it reasonable for phobia to be considered the opposite of addiction?--J. Daily 00:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prevalence

In the cited articles, due to classifications issues, and co-occuring conditions, between 8.7% and 18.1% was the best I could come up with. Specific phobia: 8.7%, Social Phobia: 6.8%, Agoraphobia: unknown, any anxiety disorder: 18.1%. --MegaHasher 07:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phobia list

Misc phobia list should go into the -phobia topic please. -MegaHasher 07:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More prominent link to -phob-

Considering that most use of the suffix "-phobia" is non-clinical, and the main place that people encounter the word "phobia" in general, and considering that all related informatrion is contained in a totally separate article that is not linked to until far down the page, I created a "see also" at the top to further disambiguate. Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 08:39, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Biased list of phobias

The author's list of only a few, select phobias seems to be biased. Instead, as complete a list of phobias as possible should be provided, preferably with internal links to other Wikipedia pages that would provide a detailed explanation of the individual phobias.

The list of phobia you talked of were chosen by the author to best illustrate the point of phobia terms used in class discrimination or biased context. Regular misc. phobia list should go into the -phobia topic. -MegaHasher 17:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be great if someone could provide some info about hemophobia. I know it is significantly different than other phobias in terms of etiology, symptomology, etc, but I don't know enough to write it up. It likely deserves its own paragraph.--Annalisa579 17:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similar Problem

The article at Pica (disorder) has a similar problem to the one this article used to have: namely, the confusion of real disorders (like the eating of clay) with what appear to be joke ones ("gooberphagia, the pathological consumption of peanuts"). Is there anyone here with any sort of familiarity with pica that would like to contribute? I'm not a doctor and Google doesn't seem like it would be too helpful a source in these cases, since the joke ones spread via the internet anyway. Recury 02:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Candidates for Phobia

What I learned in my college psych class was that there was a relatively small list of stimuli that could be sources of phobia, for example thunder, or dogs, etc. The explanation for this was that apparently certain phobias were hard-wired in us thru evolution, and dated back to a time when something like a wild dog would be an actual threat. Thoughts?--Nick 06:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there are certain stimuli in which we (humans) are primed to fear. For instance, no one "learns" to be afraid of loud noises (such as that of thunder). It is when that unlearned (called "unconditional stimulus") stimulus is paired with some other benign stimulus many times that leads to a person responding to the once benign stimulus with the same fear as the unlearned, instinctual one. Fear of dogs can be an example of generalization. One could be frightened by a single dog bearing it's teeth (instinctual response) and then subsequently fear all dogs because it is linked with the bearing of teeth. That is how some phobias develop. --Annalisa579 17:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I remember reading about one of the first descriptions of a phobia by Hippocrates of a man who became terrified if he heard the sound of a flute (aulophobia). I am not sure where this would fit into the article though. Bibliomaniac15 19:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] List of Phobias

I prepared a complete list of phobias, and added it, its an official list that i had from my Psychology class. Enjoy. -BASIK

If your class teaches that "Angrophobia- Fear of anger or of becoming angry" then I am afraid you are wasting your parents' money. `'mikka (t) 15:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
In the list, it states:
{Phobia}, fear or dislike of {criteria].
This is fundementally incorrect, surely, as a phobia is "an irrational fear of", it has nothing to do with a dislike (which is just opinion/attitude) or, as I've also seen elsewhere, a "hatred" of, which again, can stem from a phobia, but doesn't define "phobia".

[edit] links to -phob in the phobia list

The links in the phobia list are confusing, some phobia names link to more specific information about that particular phobia, others are not links, and the majority seem to link to the -phob wiktionary page. Why the inconsistency? I think the links to -phob should be changed either to existing pages about the specific condition or have the links removed, with a prominent link to -phob placed somewhere else (which it already is).

The inconsistency makes it seem like the terms which are links all have pages about the specific conditions, when in fact most of them don't, and it's impossible to tell which terms do or do not have more info.

[edit] Baragalophobia

I want somebody to go through this article and decide whether its appropriate to include this in the list of Phobias. Baragalophobia is the fear of Drought. It is a mental condition experienced by people due to the fear of impending Drought. Introduction Baragalophobia is a fear psychosis experienced by generations of men since the dawn of civilisation and begining of settled communities with agriculture as the main occupation. Drought has affected almost all the regions of the world with varying intensity. Good rainfalls are essential for survival of many communities even today. The failure of rains trigger mass fear among the community people about the impending drought and failure of crops and thus their very survival. Prevalence Baragalophobia is prevalent in the regions of the world which are mainly dependent on good rains for food production. Usually the people who suffer from this type of Phobia are from Asia and African countries. Manily rural people, small time farmers and Nomads suffer from this. The Monsoon Most people in Southeast Asia are dependent on good monsoon rains for their agricultural activities and failure of Monsoon rains means the whole year is lost without being able grow anything and a vicious sycle of lack of food for people, lack of fodder, shortage of labour, poverty and economic slump occurs. Appeasement of Rain Gods The mass fear of drought triggers the desperate people to do all sorts of things. The farmers in India perform Pooja's and sacrifices to appease the rain gods. They also perform marriage between Donkeys with the belief that the marriage will bring Rains. Some communities are known to perform animal sacrifices and Frog Marriages. Many farmers commit sucide due the fear of drought and hence impending hardships coming with failure of crops.--Ganesha1 16:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section deletion

I'm not convinced the following material should be in the article as it is written, but it has been deleted twice now without discussion even in the summary line. Rather than reverting the change again, I'm posting it here.

[edit] Types of Phobias

Any Latin prefix can end with the suffix "phobia", and naming a personal fear, for example, acrophobia, or fear of heights. The root word here is "acro" which is translated in Latin as "height" or "high").

Aleta 19:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

You got it upside down, colleague. We don't have to waste our time in discussing useless things some well-meaning teenagers add to articles. If you see something salvageable, say so, othewise please don't waste other people's time. There is still enormous amount of real work to do in wikipedia. `'mikka 20:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Emetophobia

The Emetophobia page needs more work doing on it. I keep adding an article about typical behaviour and some external links but it keeps getting deleted. JFBurton 19:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

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