“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror...” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
Halloween brings up scary images of ghosts, skeletons, monsters, and haunted houses. Spooky as they are, however, these things often aren’t as frightening as some of the everyday phobias that terrify people throughout their lives.
“Phobia” means an unreasonable, irrational, or exaggerated fear that occurs when no real danger exists. A person who has a phobia is petrified by what is just an ordinary object or basically harmless situation. One of the best-known phobias is claustrophobia, the fear of small enclosed places (such as elevators). Other common phobias include the fear of flying, heights, crowds, water, bridges, spiders, snakes, mice, cats and dogs.
Almost everyone has gone through a period in which they have a fear of lightning, thunder, being alone or in the dark. Most childhood fears are eventually outgrown, whereas phobias generally continue into adulthood. Phobias can result from a specific incident that happened at an early age. Others are passed from a phobic parent to a child who develops a similar fear. People who are naturally nervous are more susceptible to phobias.
The scientific names of phobias are taken from the Greek language:
Acrophobia- heights
Aerophobia- flying
Agoraphobia- open spaces or public places
Ailurophobia- cats
Apiphobia- bees
Arachnophobia- spiders
Autophobia- being alone
Bogyphobia- goblins
Brontophobia- thunder
Claustrophobia- enclosed spaces
Cyberphobia- computers
Cynophobia- dogs
Gephyrophobia- bridges
Hemaphobia- blood
Hippophobia- horses
Hydrophobia- water
Keraunophobia- lightning
Mathemaphobia- math
Microphobia- germs
Musophobia- mice
Nychtophobia- darkness
Ophidiophobia- snakes
Panophobia- everything
Pathophobia- disease
Phasmophobia- ghosts
Phobophobia- fear itself
Phonophobia- noise
Socialphobia- people, crowds, social gatherings
Telephonophobia- telephones
Xenophobia- foreigners and strangers
Zoophobia- animals
While some of the above phobias may seem silly, they can cause severe anxiety for anyone who suffers from that phobia. Phobic persons will go to extreme lengths to avoid the thing that causes their distress, even though directly confronting the fear may be the best way to get over it. The following books will help put your fears in perspective.
“The Pop-Up Book of Phobias,” by Gary Greenberg. (The paper engineering of these pop-ups will amaze you. Each page is designed to make you experience for yourself how it feels to have the depicted phobias. Even if you say you don’t have any fears of your own, there’s bound to be at least one page that will spook you. Although it may be a little too much for young children and sensitive adults – especially those with phobic tendencies – everyone else will think this book is a blast.)
“What Was I Scared Of?” by Dr. Seuss. (It’s creepy when you see the pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them. But when you look at the situation from a different point of view, it’s not so scary after all. The colors and classic Seussian illustrations set the spooky mood, and the silly rhyming text makes this a good book to read aloud.)
“Go Away, Big Green Monster!” by Ed Emberley. (Boldly colored diecut pages reveal increasingly scary features of a big green monster - eyes, nose, hair, mouth, etc. - until the monster is fully unmasked. “You don't scare me!” reads the caption. Keep turning the pages and, one by one, the scary features disappear– and so does the monster.)
Make a Scary Spider Web Card – You will need blue construction paper, a white crayon, black crayon or marker, and a metallic gel pen if you have one. Fold a piece of blue construction paper in half to make a card. Using the white crayon, draw a spider web on the front. (Start by making a large asterisk * in the center of the page and then draw lines to fill in the strands of the web.) On the inside, make a white dotted line coming down from the top of the page. Draw a black spider hanging at the end of the line. With the metallic gel pen, put two tiny dots for eyes on the spider. Write “BOO” or another message underneath.
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