The caethophobia It is a type of specific phobia in which you have an excessive and irrational fear of hair. Specific phobias are classified within anxiety disorders. In all phobia, the individual who suffers from it has an irrational fear of the object that causes that fear.
In the case of caetophobia, it is not only characterized in individuals who have an inordinate fear of hair, but also fear of hairy individuals and animals. It is an irrational fear of both human hair and animal hair. This fear prevents being able to lead a normalized daily life, limiting the individual and being affected by social life.
Throughout this article we will indicate its characteristics, its causes and its consequences, as well as possible effective treatments so that through all this information you can better understand its operation..
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Although most specific phobias do not have only one cause, there is a factor that can be considered as prevalent in the case of kaethophobia. This is usually a past event that has marked the patient and that has not finished solving or closing correctly.
In psychological terms, we would be talking about classical conditioning, vicarious conditioning (or the acquisition of behaviors through observation), acquisition of information in the individual's childhood, and, in some cases, there may be a genetic factor.
In caethophobia, fear is not rational, but corresponds to a disproportionate fear accompanied by irrational thoughts. This fear occurs both in the presence of the phobic stimulus and in anticipation.
Fundamental characteristic of specific phobias. In the case of kaethophobia, the feeling of lack of control is intense every time the individual has to face the hair.
In daily life, there are many situations in which hair is an element that is inevitably present, so the discomfort is constant. Specifically, it is in situations of cleaning or contact with others where the individual with this phobia may show more discomfort.
Due to the feeling of absolute lack of control in the situation, the individual has a complete need to avoid the phobic object or situation..
This avoidance or flight from any situation in which they may be in danger affects their normal daily life with all the disturbances that this entails..
Fear in a fair and reasonable measure; it has always been considered adaptive in the survival of the living being. Adaptive fear is a set of sensations that are set in motion as a normal response to real dangers (Marks, 1987), which benefits us to move away at times when our life is in danger.
However, when intense fear develops in situations where there is no real threat to the living being, it becomes maladaptive.
One of the ways in which it is possible to differentiate whether it is a rational fear or a phobia is its duration and frequency in time..
If it is a specific fear, which occurs in isolation, we cannot consider it a phobia. Phobias, in addition to their frequency, persist in the different stages of the individual (childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) if they are not treated by a professional.
It is another of the fundamental characteristics of specific phobias, specifically kaetofobia. This means that excessive fear of hair cannot be explained objectively in relation to events that have occurred. It is completely irrational, without objective evidence that can justify it.
In the first half of the 20th century, the therapeutic alternatives for phobias, which today we call specific or simple, were basically reduced to treatment with psychoanalysis. Starting with the work of Joseph Wolpe (1958), the so-called behavior therapy entered the field of phobias strong..
All phobia must be treated since it is an anxiety disorder that usually significantly affects the daily life of the individual. In this type of problem, a high efficacy of psychological therapy has been contrasted.
Therefore, it is not a disorder that can be cured, but if it is treated in time there is a high percentage of individuals who are cured. Psychotherapy must be performed by a Clinical Psychologist specializing in specific phobias for a good resolution of the problem.
The techniques that are most used in therapy to deal with a specific phobia are:
In the case of kaethophobia, as it is a specific phobia, the most indicated for its treatment is gradual exposure. In the gradual exposure in vivo, the phobic situations are hierarchized for later the individual to faceto the dreaded object (hair) little by little to perform desensitization.
Thus, it is advisable in this case to carry out visual exposure to the hair and then move on to visual exposure including physical contact with the phobic stimulus. Several investigations have proven how this technique is the most effective in the short and long term for the treatment of specific phobias.
In addition to individuals responding quickly to the technique, the benefits would last over time. There are cases of phobias in which, for various reasons, a live exhibition cannot be carried out, so the exhibition in imagination is carried out instead..
When performing this technique, emphasis will be placed on controlling the avoidance of said phobic situations until the subject's anxiety decreases..
Scientific research shows that the success of this technique to treat specific phobias is due to the fact that exposure in the absence of the dreaded consequences results in the extinction of phobic reactions (both physiological and physical).
Anxiety control techniques are a group of techniques whose main function is the control and reduction of anxiety. All of them are of special importance when facing the first stages in which anxiety levels are very high.
These include:
In these therapies, the professional will aim for the patient to investigate in the search for the determinants and maintenance factors of their phobia, with the intention that this research helps to encourage them to develop a therapeutic action plan together with the professional.
To do this, you will be provided with information about the causes or factors that originate and / or maintain the phobic behaviors..
These types of techniques are more recent than behavioral techniques. These are used in most cases in combination with exposure techniques, in tandem by which the effectiveness of the treatment is increased..
In this area, the most used techniques are rational emotive therapy (Ellis, 1962; Warren and Zgourides, 1991), stress inoculation training (Meichenbaum, 1977, 1985) or systematic rational therapy (Golfried, 1977), all they adapted to the treatment of specific phobias.
The objective of these therapies is to change the patient's thinking patterns, keeping the emphasis on the difference between realistic and unrealistic thoughts or the difference between possible and probable (Marshall, Bristol, & Barbaree, 1992).
Therefore, the final objectives are that the individual can benefit from them to reduce anxiety before exposure therapies, in addition to correcting these irrational thoughts and modifying them by adaptive attributions of motor and physiological reactions (Anthony, Craske & Barlow, 1995 ; Shafran, Booth & Rachman, 1992).
The main consequence suffered by people with this phobia is that they need to be away from those individuals who have abundant hair and, in addition, have strange behaviors if circumstances make them stay close to someone's hair.
There are even cases in which the problem is so great that the individual becomes averse to himself reaching the point of pulling his own hair. Likewise, they tend to feel discomfort every time they need to look in the mirror..
Some of the situations in which these individuals may be involved and in which they will suffer a noticeable sensation of discomfort may be:
We can conclude by way of summary that the etiology of caetophobia has yet to be determined with precision. However, in relation to treatments, cognitive-behavioral therapy is the ones that have been shown to be the most useful when facing the problem.
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