Human Fears

K r i s t i n a D r o z d o v s k aya

2013

BaPro

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Filos Fobos

Leeuwenrui 4

Royal Academy of Fine Arts Graphic Design Department Belgium 2012-2013 Bachelor project by Krystsina Drazdouskaya Curators: Oswald Pawels - Photography Johan Devrome - Graphic Design Marc De Bisschop - Graphic Design Info text was taken from AllAboutCounseling.com Wikipedia.com

K r i s t i n a D r o z d o v s k aya

2013

BaPro

>>>

Filos Fobos

Have you ever felt the fear?

The question is rhetorical as we are humans.

Fear sometimes not clear and unjustified or vice versa obvious and predictable but fear always chooses the moment when you are vulnerable..

Fear is our unconscious protection from the danger, what we have gained during the time of human being. Sometimes fears are understandable in a way of saving life.

Phobias are also fake - play of our imagination, our frightened feelings and nothing more.

My aim was the exploration of human fears and giving a visual answer to the “question what’s the most fearful: it is our imaginable fears or the reality of what can happen?” A lot of fears already not actual in a modern time. So I propose to make a visual talk and look to the “eyes of danger”.

I decided to make this project as a vaccine against fear to confront and neutralize them.

Fear as a visual manifestations of our imagination,as our own mind play.

Conent

>>> Algophobia

• Biological fears

hemophobia Arachnophobia Herpetophobia Ophidiophobia hypochondria Trypanophobia Pharmacophobia Tokophobia

Harpaxophobia

• Social fears

Scelerophobia Aphenphosmphobia Genophobia Fear of negative evaluation Atychiphobia Dysmorphophobia Anthropophobia Athazagoraphobia Autophobia

Acrophobia Phasmophobia

• Existential fears

Aquaphobia Gerascophobia NYCTOPHOBIA

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Thanatophobia

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Agraphobia

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Driving phobia

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By definition, phobias are IRRATIONAL, meaning that they interfere with one's everyday life or daily routine.

Fear is an emotion induced by a threat perceived by living entities, which causes a change in brain and organ function and ultimately a change in behavior, such as running away, hiding or freezing from traumatic events. Fear may oc-

cur in response to a specific stimulus happening in the present, or to a future situation, which is perceived as risk to health or life, status, power, security, or, in the case of humans, wealth or anything held valuable. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat.

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Biological fear or Specific phobia is a type of phobia which gets triggered due to a specific stimulus. For instance, an individual can experience panic attack while driving, taking an elevator or by merely viewing an insect. It could also be a fear of being trapped in a closed room. Specific phobia can disrupt one’s day to day activities because of the nature of the phobia. For example, a person with a driving phobia will try his best to avoid being seated in the driver’s seat. He would prefer staying dependent on others for his travelling needs to avoid confronting his phobia.

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Driving phobia Fear of accident

The most common cause of a fear of driving is traffic accidents.

These situations cause PTSD Driving Phobia, where the fear develops in response to a traumatic event.

Usually, situations like these trigger a fear of driving in only specific situations related to the original cause, though it also can trigger a fear of driving entirely.

Most common form is driving phobia as a specific phobia. Because driving does involve some danger and the possibility of a collision, there does exist some fear or caution in many rational people.

However, for some the fear of crashing, losing control over the car, being criticized or being in a dangerous situation will cause panic. It is classified as a phobia when the anxiety does not rationally reflect the amount of danger.

Because driving is an inherently dangerous activity, almost everyone will experience driving anxiety to some extent, though not necessarily to the degree of a phobia.

The majority of those with a fear of driving rate themselves as safer drivers than average, though less relaxed.

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Algophobia abnormal and persistent fear of pain

It is an unusual, morbid fear of pain, producing intense anxiety that is far more powerful than that of a normal person. Algophobia may also be used in reference to conditions such as fear of being hurt.

Some researchers believe this condition may be caused by a person overestimating how bad pain could be or the danger of a situation. The fear could build up so much that it causes the individual to have anxiety attacks. Patients suffering from algophobia often report feeling intense pains when only the slightest amount of pressure is applied.

hemophobia extreme and irrational fear of blood Hemophobia and other blood-injection-injury phobias frequently cause a drop in blood pressure and heart rate.

The sudden drop can lead to fainting, a relatively common response to the sight of blood. Anticipatory anxiety, in which you may experience a racing heart, shaking, and gastrointestinal distress, is common in the hours and days before an upcoming encounter with blood.

Hemophobia can cause a wide range of difficulties that may prove life-limiting or even dangerous. If you are afraid of blood, you may be reluctant to seek medical treatment.

You might postpone or avoid annual physicals and needed medical tests. You may refuse surgery or dental treatments.

Parents with hemophobia may find it difficult or impossible to bandage their children’s wounds. You might pass these tasks off to your spouse whenever possible.

You may also overreact to minor injuries in your children as well as yourself, frequenting emergency rooms or walk-in clinics when home treatment would suffice.

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Arachnophobia Fear of spiders and other arachnids harvestmen scorpions

Arachnophobia, fear of spiders and other arachnids harvestmen, scorpions. Usually, the occurrence of arachnophobia, explain the fact that some spiders bring real harm cheloveku.A is stored and indulges in an evolutionary way. And the fact that spiders are very different from humans.

But in cases, these explain the origin of arachnophobia is difficult. Most likely, the cause of this reaction is taught, it is also confirmed by research data. Arachnophobia fear except arachnids, spider or web images, often it causes more fear. Women suffer from this phobia is much more than men.

Real harm spiders are not comparable with those who fear it causes. Arachnophobia usually treat behavioral therapies.

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Herpetophobia fear or aversion to reptiles

This condition causes a slight to severe emotional reaction, as for example anxiety, panic attack or most commonly nausea.

About a third of adult humans are herpetophobic, making this the most common reported phobia. Scientists have theorised that humans may have an innate reaction to snakes, which was vital for the survival of humankind as it allowed such dangerous threats to be identified immediately.

Most people with Ophidiophobia can lead normal lives as they do not have to confront the object of their fears under normal circumstances.

However, for people with severe Ophidiophobia, the mere mention, or an image of a snake in books or on TV can lead to an intense fear response, the reactions of which can even include heart attacks and death.

Ophidiophobia abnormal fear of snakes

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hypochondria

fears that minor bodily or mental symptoms may indicate a serious illness

Refers to worry about having a serious illness. This debilitating condition is the result of an inaccurate perception of the condition of body or mind despite the absence of an actual medical condition. An individual suffering from hypochondriasis is known as a hypochondriac. Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical or psychological symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be, and are convinced that they have, or are about to be diagnosed with, a serious illness.

Trypanophobia extreme fear of hypodermic needles or injections in medical procedures Trypanophobia is the extreme fear of hypodermic needles or injections in medical procedures.

While it is normal for anyone to have a certain level of discomfort or fear related to these procedures, the trypanophobic fears them so much that he or she either avoids medical treatment altogether, or exhibits other forms of avoidant or anxious behavior.

Sometimes people with this disorder faint when exposed to needles or injection, even when the procedure does not involve them.

Pharmacophobia fear of the use of pharmacological treatments Phobia of medications can have serious detrimental effects on patient health, for example refusal of necessary pharmacological interventions.

Medication phobia can also lead to problems with medication compliance. Medication phobia can also present in parents who are concerned about giving medications to their children, fearing that the medications will do more harm than good.

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Tokophobia fear of pregnancy and childbirth

22 Often the fear of childbirth motivates a request for an elective caesarean section. Fear of labor pain is strongly associated with the fear of pain in general; a previous complicated childbirth, or inadequate pain relief, may cause the phobia to develop. A fear of pregnancy itself can result in an avoidance of pregnancy or even, as birth control methods are never 100% effective, an avoidance of sexual intercourse.

Phobia of pregnancy and childbirth, as with any phobia, can manifest through a number of symptoms including nightmares, difficulty in concentrating on work or on family activities, panic attacks and psychosomatic complaints.

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Social phobia is characterized by the fear of being judged by others. Individuals affected by social phobia usually avoid social functions and other gatherings due to the irrational fear of being judged by other attendees. The victim feels that he will be singled out and scrutinized in the crowd, thereby leading to an embarrassing situation. For instance, a person with social phobia will avoid parties fearing that people around him will start laughing at his clothes, or confront him with questions that would make him feel awkward.

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Harpaxophobia Harpaxophobia is the fear of being robbed

This fear is often caused by a traumatic experience in the past, such as being a victim of robbery. Sufferers may face isolation, low self-esteem, depression, and other anxiety disorders. Due to the exposure in high risk situations, they may also suffer from social anxiety or even agoraphobia.

The most common treatment option of kleptophobia is cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is used to replace negative memory due to trauma with positive, logical thought. Other treatment methods include a variety of talk therapy, hypnosis and medication, which are also used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, general anxiety disorder and other related disorders.

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Scelerophobia the fear of burglars, bad men or crime in general

People with Scelerophobia usually show avoidance and protective behaviors such as refusing to go out at night.

Many tend to obtain protective measures like watch dogs, electric fences, security systems with alarms or join self defense classes and other neighborhood crime watch programs. Some tend to go overboard and obsessive in checking and rechecking their locks.

Physical symptoms of Scelerophobia including having a full blown panic attack at the thought of crime or being attacked. Crying, shaking, weeping, trembling are other signs of Scelerophobia. These people are constantly vigilant and never relax which can be a tiring experience for them.

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Aphenphosmphobia Fear of intimacy Fear of intimacy is generally a social phobia and anxiety disorder resulting in difficulty forming close relationships with another person. The term can also refer to a scale on a psychometric test, or a type of adult in attachment theory psychology.

As the name indicates, the person suffering from the fear of intimacy phobia dreads intimacy (shared between lovers or other close relationships with parents, siblings and friends). Since most close relationships are based on deep emotional bonds, the person suffering from this fear is unable to share a meaningful association with any person.

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Genophobia fear of sexual relations or sexual intercourse

Genophobia can induce panic and fear in individuals, much like panic attacks. People who suffer from the phobia can be intensely affected by attempted sexual contact or just the thought of it.

The extreme fear can lead to trouble in romantic relationships. Those afflicted by genophobia may stay away from getting involved in relationships to avoid the possibility of intimacy. This can lead to feelings of loneliness. Genophobic people may also feel lonely because they may feel embarrassed or ashamed of their personal fears.

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Fear of negative evaluation People who highly concerned with seeking social approval or avoiding disapproval by others, and may tend to avoid situations where they have to undergo evaluations.

Social anxiety is, in part, a response to perceived negative evaluation by others. Whereas FNE is related to the dread of being evaluated unfavorably when participating in a social situation, social anxiety is defined as a purely emotional reaction to this type of social situation.

When patients with social phobia evaluate their relationships, they are extremely fearful of negative evaluation and express high degrees of FNE. As discussed by Ledley, subjects in a study were asked to give a speech after completing a Dot-probe paradigm task. After being presented with negative faces, low FNE participants did not display any increased apprehension, whereas high FNE participants displayed more apprehension.

FNE has been suggested to have some genetic component, as are other personality characteristics such as trait anxiousness, submissiveness, and social avoidance. BFNE scores have been found to have a genetic component in twin studies. In addition, BFNE scores and the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire have been found to be genetically correlated. It has been suggested that the genes that influence negative evaluation fears affect a range of anxiety personality behaviors.

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Atychiphobia considers the possibility of failure so intense that they choose not to take the risk

As with many phobias, atychiphobia often leads to a constricted lifestyle, and is particularly devastating for its effects on a person’s willingness to attempt certain activities. Those with atychiphobia create a direct link between the possibility of failure and competition.

Individuals coping with Atychiphobia mainly fear failure because they lack confidence in their abilities. Some experience extreme fear of failure because of the ridicule one might face owing to the failure. Likewise, some suffer from Atychiphobia due to the fear of risk taking. Individuals coping with Atychiphobia often have rigid or unrealistic expectations and/or excessive standards of behavior.

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Dysmorphophobia Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)

is a mental disorder via obsessive preoccupation with a perceived defect in one’s own appearance, viewed as so severe as to warrant exceptional measures to hide or fix it.

Whereas vanity concerns preoccupation with aggrandizing the appearance, BDD is compulsion to merely normalize the appearance. While associating with perfectionism, BDD also reflects negative body image, and shares features with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but manifests greater levels of depression and social avoidance. BDD has high comorbidity with social anxiety disorder.

In BDD, the perceived bodily defect can be at virtually any area, yet is usually the nose, skin, or hair. Attempts at self-treatment can paradoxically create lesions where none previously existed. BDD often drives a quest to obtain dermatological treatment or cosmetic surgery, which interventions typically do not resolve the distress Most generally, one experiencing ruminates over the perceived bodily defect up to several hours daily, uses either social avoidance or camouflaging with cosmestics or apparel, repetitively checks the appearance, compares it to that of other persons, and might often seek verbal reassurances. BDD’s severity can wax and wane, and flareups tend to yield absences from school, work, or socializing, sometimes leading to protracted social isolation.

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Anthropophobia pathological fear of people or human company

Anthropophobia is an extreme, pathological form of shyness and timidity.

Being a form of social phobia, it may manifest as fears of blushing or meeting others’ gaze, awkwardness and uneasiness when appearing in society.

Anthropophobia, the individual fears people in most or all situations, rather than, for example, only fearing people during public speaking or when eating before others, as is the case with social phobias. Thus, the difference between social phobia and the extreme fear of people is subtle and hence diagnosis is often difficult.

In Anthropophobia, the individual might even fear close friends and relatives and perceive them as being threatening as much as a stranger.

The person with the extreme fear of people understands that his/her fear is illogical.

Despite this, they let the phobia affect their daily lives, education or occupation. They arrange these activities so that there is minimal interaction with people.

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Athazagoraphobia fear of being forgotten or ignored and fear of forgetting

Many specific phobias can be traced back to a specific triggering event, usually a traumatic experience at an early age. As stated before, the fear of being forgotten can arise in childhood if the individual has been left alone or has been ignored for a long time.

Many sufferers of this phobia report feeling “inconsequential or unsubstantial� due to the feelings they undergo when left alone.

The symptoms vary from case to case depending on the type of Athazagoraphobia as well as its intensity. Some patients are severely depressed or angry all the time due to this phobia.

Often they tend to be isolated rather than face being ignored. They also try to do everything possible to ensure they are not forgotten-burying mementos in the soil, tying knots around fingers or around trees and so on.

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Autophobia dread of being alone or isolated

Autophobia is the specific phobia of isolation; a morbid fear of being egotistical, or a dread of being alone or isolated. Sufferers need not be physically alone, but believe that they are being ignored, unloved, threatened by intruders, and so on.

An abnormal and persistent fear of loneliness, of being alone. A fear of solitude. Sufferers from autophobia may experience anxiety even though they realize that being alone does not threaten their well-being. They may worry about being ignored and unloved, or they may worry about intruders, strange noises or the possibility of developing a medical problem. >>Monophobia

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Agraphobia also contreltophobia) is the abnormal fear of sexual abuse Sufferers of agraphobia may have had an experience linking emotional trauma with sexual abuse. Such experiences do not have to happen to the sufferer: watching sexual abuse occur (even in movies or on television) can act as a trigger to the condition. The body then develops a fear of the experience occurring again as a way of ‘ensuring’ that the event does not occur.

In some cases sex abuse hysteria, caused by misinformation, overzealous or careless investigation practices, or sensationalist news coverage, can cause agraphobia as well, this being different from the PTSD-driven agraphobia that comes from real situations of sexual abuse. Day care sex abuse hysteria is one example of this erroneously caused agraphobia. Many people who were originally accused or even found guilty were later found to be innocent of sexual abuse, their ordeal having been caused by hysteria and misinformation-driven agraphobia.

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Existential ferar - is a fear having being in time and space. Paul Tillich characterized existential

anxiety as “the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing” the morbid, abnormal or persistent fear of one’s own mortality. One definition of death anxiety is a “feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be’.

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Acrophobia The fear of heights

Individuals having the fear of heights generally avoid tall buildings, Ferris wheels, roller coasters, skiing or even standing on high hills or balconies.

Acrophobia generally affects the recreational activities one can enjoy. However, in some extreme cases, the phobia can affect one’s day to day life. For example: driving on bridges may trigger panic attacks or dizziness or individuals living or working in large cities might find it difficult to attend meetings on higher floors of a building or may experience dizziness in escalators, glass elevators, railings, and on staircases etc.

Three main responses are generated by Acrophobia. These include anxiety, panic and fear. Depending on the situation, stimulus and individual reaction, one might experience muscle tension, headaches, panic attacks, palpitations, or dizziness. A full blown panic attack resulting from the fear of heights can cause breathlessness, loss of control, and even thoughts of dying.

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Phasmophobia The fear of ghosts For people having extreme fear of ghosts, life can become downright miserable. Many refuse to step outside after dark, or sleeping alone or turning out the lights. Halloween is an especially scary time of year.

In many traditional accounts, ghosts are often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death.

Anticipatory anxiety, fear of the dead or unknown (or things which go ‘bump in the night’) are mainly responsible for triggering Spectrophobia. This is fuelled further by movies, scary folktales, religious/superstitious beliefs and news or media reports about supposed ‘ghost sightings’.

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Aquaphobia Fear of Water

Many people have an extreme fear of water. They conjure up images of dying in water, drowning, gasping for breath, or encountering eerie, unseen things such as snakes or sharks in the water. Often, those suffering from Aquaphobia are non swimmers. Some phobics not only fear large water bodies, lakes, ponds or rivers, many even fear running water or water being poured onto their heads.

The fear of drowning is a rational and logical fear experienced by many who cannot swim. Aquahobic individuals, however, experience great deal of anxiety around all kinds of water bodies ranging from large oceans to small bathtubs.

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Gerascophobia abnormal or persistent fear of growing old or ageing

Gerascophobia is an abnormal or persistent fear of growing old or ageing. Gerascophobia is a clinical phobia generally classified under specific phobias, fears of a single specific panic trigger.

Gerascophobia may be based on anxieties of being left alone, without resources and incapable of caring for oneself, Sufferers may be young and healthy.

Symptoms include the fear of the future and the fear of needing to rely on others to do daily functions. Many also fear they will not play an active role in society when they get older.

The term gerascophobia comes from the Greek θα γεράσω, tha geraso, “I am ageing” and φόβος, phobos, “fear”. Some authors refer to it as gerontophobia, although this may also refer to the fear of the elderly.

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NYCTOPHOBIA Fear of darkness

Normal people usually worry about something they cannot see in the dark, but nyctophobic people is different.

Aside from fearing what they cannot see, nyctophobic people are simply afraid of the dark itself. Being alone in the darkness may get them panic, tremble, and perspire. This kind of phobia may be a significant hindrance to people’s life since it limits people’s night activities as well as people’s choices of places to go.

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Thanatophobia Fear of Death

The extreme and often irrational thought or fear of death leads to the phobia known as Thanatophobia.

Very severe cases of thanatophobia often negatively impact the day to day functioning of the individual suffering from this condition. Often s/he refuses to leave the home owing to this fear. The talk or thought of death (or what lies after death) can trigger panic attacks in the patients.

Before considering the diagnosis of the fear of death, it is important to consider a few conditions that are mistaken for Thanatophobia. Depression, ADHD and bipolar disorders are often linked to this type of phobia. In other cases, undiagnosed conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, migraines, concentration disorders, strokes, schizophrenia, and epilepsy etc may actually be related to Thanatophobia.

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Today, individuals go out of their way to avoid an object or situation that can scare them by giving life to their biggest fears.

Remember, all the phobias out there are nothing but illogical dread of touch.