Scoleciphobia is a neurological mental disorder that manifests itself in a pathological fear of worms, as well as the diseases they cause. This phobia also applies to leeches, slugs, caterpillars and other creatures that are somehow similar to worms.
Many people are afraid and disgusted by worms, there is nothing special about this. Because of their appearance, these creatures are unlikely to make anyone smile with tenderness. However, some people panic at the mere sight of them, or are afraid to touch them, or even think that worms may live somewhere in the house or garden. In this case, we can say that the person has scoleciphobia - a disease that must be fought.
Causes and symptoms of fear
Batrachophobia is the name given to the state of fear of frogs and toads. It is manifested by the following symptoms:
- speech constraint;
- dyspnea;
- cardiopalmus;
- nausea;
- increased sweating.
Those susceptible to batrachophobia try to avoid water bodies. They believe that frogs can live in the water. Attractions related to water are perceived as a threat to one’s own life.
People who are afraid of amphibians cannot stand horror films with their participation. They immediately change the TV channel. A randomly seen frame causes horror and disgust.
They cannot adequately assess the situation. When they see frogs, they feel pain in their hearts or faint. They start vomiting incessantly. They do not agree to touch the object of their fear under any circumstances.
Fear of amphibians occurs for several reasons:
- Disgust. People experience negative emotions when they see frogs.
- Superstition. There is a belief that toads should not be handled, as this will cause warts.
- Unpleasant sounds. Loud sounds bring terrible irritation, unbalancing.
- Bad smell. Batrachophobes believe that amphibians live in mud and touching them can have negative consequences.
- Mental trauma. An unfortunate experience that left psychological trauma for many years.
The roots of the phobia should be sought in childhood. During this period, people often suffer psychological trauma. Parents may intimidate their child with amphibians. Sometimes the cause is fear. A frog can sit in one place for a long time and then suddenly jump.
The development of the disease in an adult is also influenced by the media, which disseminate facts about the dangers of frogs. People are capable of acquiring a phobia due to the ugly appearance of toads, which can cause disgust.
The reasons for the fear of frogs and toads can also be prejudice. To cope with your fear of amphibians, you need to understand what caused it.
What is the cause of scoleciphobia?
This disease is not typical for young children. Preschool children are, in a sense, fearless; they explore the world, analyze and draw conclusions about certain things. A naive perception of the world “protects” children from far-fetched fears and phobias. After rain, children often collect worms, examine and study them. Mothers are most likely shocked by this behavior; they ask the child to throw away this nasty thing, wash their hands with soap and never touch worms again.
A small child feels his mother’s disgust towards these creatures and adopts her model of behavior. It is from this moment that the first signs of the disease begin to appear. There are other events that strengthen the fear of worms in a child’s mind - the baby may be bitten by a leech or frightened by a large green caterpillar.
Mothers often scare their children about worms, telling them that they should not walk with dirty hands, dig in the ground or drink dirty water. People who have had worms are especially susceptible to scoleciphobia.
Scoleciphobia is often associated with a fear of death. The sight of a rotting corpse infested with worms is simply terrifying. People with a rich imagination, seeing such a spectacle on TV, begin to associate worms with death.
Depending on the cause, there are several types of diseases:
- Scoleciphobia is the fear of worms and anything that has a worm-like shape.
- Verminophobia . This is not a fear of worms, but rather a fear of all the diseases that can be contracted from them. A person is afraid of dying from cadaveric poison, getting irritation or warts on the skin.
- Teniophobia is the fear of becoming infected with worms.
Each person has his own reason to be afraid of worms, most often it is society that instills in a person disgust towards these creatures, and then his own imagination comes into play. Scoleciphobia is often accompanied by other mental and nervous disorders.
Treatment
A person can try to get rid of panic fear on his own. You need to convince yourself of the following facts:
- Frogs are harmless creatures. They do not attack first and avoid communicating with people.
- Amphibians do not live in houses. These creatures have sensitive skin and live in water.
- There is no need to be afraid of frogs. They are not capable of killing a person.
Overcoming such fear can be difficult. It can turn into an obsession that haunts you everywhere. In this situation, you should consult a psychotherapist. Identifying the case that gave rise to the onset of the disease is an important fact in the treatment of phobia. The psychotherapist will determine the cause of the disease, study it and prescribe a treatment plan. In the process of getting rid of the problem, the following techniques can be used:
- Working with symbols. The person is shown footage of disasters. Against this background, the fear of frogs fades into the background and no longer seems such a terrible factor.
- Positive example method. The attitude is instilled that amphibian creatures have a harmless character.
- The patient is advised to purchase an aquarium with toads. A person faces his fear at close range and gradually overcomes negative perceptions. This method should be used with caution. Sometimes when observing amphibians, unpredictable reactions may occur.
When getting rid of a phobia, drug treatment can also be used. But medications only soothe, without eliminating the cause of the horror. At home, you can use herbal medicine and drink soothing infusions of medicinal plants.
You can overcome fear with the help of hypnosis. Some people don't like the feeling of losing control, but the method can be effective in combating the phobia. It usually takes 1 or 2 sessions to get rid of the problem. Hypnosis helps reprogram the mind.
There are other ways. A psychologist can show a person photographs and then offer to touch live amphibians. Gradually, after a few days or weeks, the hostility goes away. You can use the method of avoiding troubles. In this case, a person should avoid the habitats of frogs. If an amphibian appears in your yard, you need to ask someone to take it to another place without causing harm.
According to popular belief, if a toad settles near a house, this promises happiness to the inhabitants.
Frogs are useful creatures and should not be feared. If they live on the site, they will protect it from harmful insects, slugs and caterpillars, and mosquitoes.
There are many options for getting rid of fears. Try to overcome your fear on your own. There are cases where people who are afraid of heights became climbers, and those who felt fear of water began to swim well. This applies to any situation, including horror of amphibians. It is important not to plunge into a chronic state of fear and try to overcome the problem of fear.
Fear of frogs and toads: how to cure the symptoms of batrachophobia and forget about it forever
Psychotherapist of the highest category Oleg Viktorovich
26074
Update date: September 2020
Many people develop a fear of frogs and toads as children. You can encounter a phobia for the first time even in adulthood.
Its development is caused by a strong hostility towards these creatures and a reluctance to be near them.
Like any other mental disorder, fear has its own symptoms, the occurrence of which negatively affects a person’s life. Therefore, it is undesirable to leave such fears without the attention of a doctor.
Causes of batrachophobia
Most people simply cannot stand the appearance of these tailless creatures.
Experts identify a whole group of reasons that can lead to fear of frogs and toads. It is they who influence a person’s subconscious, which is why he begins to experience real horror at the sight of amphibians.
The fear of amphibians, namely toads and frogs, is called batrachophobia.
A person who is subject to such fear is unable to bear a single sign of a toad or a frog. He is irritated by their appearance, smell and sounds that amphibians make. This reaction can hardly be called ordinary hostility when it takes on a serious scale and causes severe discomfort.
Batrachophobia can develop in a person for the following reasons:
- Strong disgust that arises in a person towards representatives of amphibians. The meeting or thoughts about them evoke exclusively negative emotions in him.
- Belief in the truthfulness of folk superstitions. According to one of these, contact with a frog leads to the appearance of ugly warts on a person’s skin. But in reality, if this happens, it is only due to the fault of a virus that is carried by many representatives of the fauna world, and not just amphibians.
- Prejudice and belief in myths. Frogs were often ranked among the ancient gods. According to beliefs that exist among certain nations, people descended from amphibians. Therefore, hostility towards them may be caused by a person’s reluctance to one day change his own appearance.
- Inability to adequately evaluate the sounds that frogs make. People with batrachophobia easily relate to any sound, even the most unpleasant one. But croaking causes them instant irritation, which is difficult to cope with.
- Disgust from such a delicious dish as frog legs. Not every person is ready to change their own taste preferences and appreciate this delicacy. It is the disgust for the dish that often provokes the development of such phobias.
- Inability to tolerate the unpleasant odor that frogs have. It can cause a panic attack in a person, which is one of the main signs of pathological fear. The patient may become so stressed out that they begin to smell the frog odor on their own body.
- Fear of death, which can be caused by contact with a poisonous toad. Such thoughts are prompted by watching television programs or reading scientific articles on the topic of amphibians.
- Severe fright, which was caused by the sudden appearance of a frog at an unexpected moment. In most cases, this cause is detected in children.
- Experiencing a negative situation that is directly related to frogs and toads. For example, children may see dead amphibians, which does not have the best effect on their psycho-emotional state.
According to scientific research, a phobia occurs in a person after his direct contact with the object of fear.
Manifestations
When a person sees an object of hostility, he immediately begins to feel that there are bad smells around him.
Not every person who avoids contact with frogs is batrachophobic. A true phobia can be recognized by symptoms characteristic of a mental disorder:
- Refusal to swim in open waters where amphibians are found.
- Fear of objects depicting toads or frogs.
- Feeling of anxiety when going outside, as this may lead to an encounter with an irritant.
- Quickly change the channel if an image of amphibians appears on the TV screen.
- Irritability when a frog croaks.
- The feeling that everything around smells like a swamp and amphibians.
When a person with a phobia sees frogs, their sweating quickly increases and their heart rate increases. He begins to behave inappropriately, which once again confirms fears about the development of a mental disorder.
Often people with batrachophobia complain of feeling nauseated when they see frogs or even visit the places where they live.
Famous Batrachophobes
Many famous personalities fail to hide their fears from the public. Constant and close observation of the lives of stars helps journalists and admirers of creativity to recognize the phobias of their idols. It made it possible to identify celebrities who showed signs of batrachophobia.
Famous people who are included in this list suffer from fear of frogs:
- Max Barskikh. The reason is an amphibian bite when trying to pick it up.
- Paul Marinassio. The reason is the long-term fight against frogs and their croaking after the house was flooded.
- Marina Tsvetaeva. The reason was fear of the scream of the girl to whom she brought the frog close.
Ways to fight
People who get scared and become terribly afraid of frogs need professional help. If a person is afraid of amphibians, but he had a bad experience with them in the past, which continues to haunt him in the present. To cope with this problem, you need to eliminate the fear of toads and frogs by undergoing adequate therapy.
Literature Study
You need to read as much as possible about frogs
If you wish, you can try to cope with the phobia on your own.
To achieve a positive result of therapy, you must initially tune yourself only to it, driving away any doubts about the effectiveness of the treatment.
Studying scientific literature helps to cope with the disorder. A patient with a fear of frogs should focus on facts related to amphibians. This way he will understand that they do not live in houses and in most cases do not cause any harm to human health.
Help from psychotherapists
Fighting a phobia on your own does not always bring the desired result. In this case, it is recommended to involve a competent specialist in solving the problem.
The psychotherapist will get acquainted with the patient’s problem and offer him treatment using the following techniques:
- Working with symbols. The psychotherapist shows the patient pictures that represent real threat and death. They can depict coffins, disasters, murders. After such therapy, frogs seem to people to be absolutely harmless creatures that should not be feared.
- Application of the subjective boundary method. The psychotherapist tries to convince the patient that his fear is in fact far-fetched. To understand this, he will have to personally meet the irritant several times.
- Positive example method. Most often it is used in the treatment of children. To convince the patient that contact with a frog is safe, you must first demonstrate this to him in a trusted person or try to present the image of the amphibian as a kind character.
It is recommended to combine several practices to enhance their effect in treating the fear of frogs.
Autotraining
Auto-training helps convince a person with batrachophobia that frogs are safe and harmless. During conversations with the patient, it is necessary to focus on the fact that in ancient times amphibians had benefits for people. Plus, self-hypnosis practices are used, which also allow you to suppress your fears.
Advice from psychologists
The disease cannot be left to chance, the problem must be treated
If a person is very worried about the fear he experiences when he sees amphibians, he should consult a specialist about this problem. If you do not start to fight it, then over time it will develop into a serious mental disorder.
Often a phobia is a consequence of ignorance of information about frogs and toads. It is worth studying it in more detail in order to significantly reduce the level of fear of these creatures. This is one way to understand your enemy, who really poses no threat.
Source: https://mozg.expert/fobii/boyazn-lyagushek/
Famous people with a fear of amphibians
Celebrities are also prone to phobias. The list of famous people with a fear of amphibians includes the following:
- Max Barskikh. The famous singer describes the reason for the fear of amphibians this way. Once in Kherson, he and his friends explored the area. On the way, the children met a large toad. She bit Max when the curious boy wanted to pick her up. This triggered his fear of toads. According to the singer, many years later he finally decided to try the local cuisine in Thailand when the chef offered a toad delicacy with an excellent sauce. Max tried to overcome the phobia that arose in childhood.
- Paul Marinassio. A famous American, the owner of a road construction company, has a negative attitude towards frogs. His anger brought him profit. An enterprising oligarch sued the neighbors for flooding the site. The man said that he was forced to listen to the sounds of amphibians at night, which prevented him from sleeping. During the trial, Paul received $1.6 million.
Celebrities who suffer from bufonophobia
Famous personalities, whose lives are under constant control of the paparazzi, cannot hide their fears, so they willingly share them with journalists and fans. There are also batrachophobes among celebrities, including:
- Max Barskikh, who has been afraid of frogs since childhood. The fear was caused by an amphibian bite after the boy tried to pick up the toad. After this, Max cannot stand the sight of this animal; in Thailand, he even refused to try a delicacy made from frogs, although he willingly ate other local exotics (cockroaches, larvae, grasshoppers).
- Paul Marinassio, who became famous thanks to his construction company in America. He hates croaking. The man said that his plot is flooded and many frogs have settled on it, so he has to turn to his daughter for help, who helps him fight amphibians. Paul even managed to earn more than $1.5 million from his phobia - this is exactly the amount the neighbors paid the celebrity for the damage caused.
- Marina Tsvetaeva, who was afraid to pick up tailless amphibians and ran away from them in panic. This happened after the poetess brought a living creature to the face of her frightened friend - the girl’s screams amazed Marina Tsvetaeva so much that she threw out the frog and began to be afraid of them.
