Phobia

The famous American actress Rihanna once told media that even though she was born in Barbadian, she had a phobia of sea creatures, even tiny fish.  Phobia means extreme and irrational fear of something, and it is considered as mental disorder.  Rihanna’s symptom is called “ichthyophobia,” the fear of fish.  There is a very long list for different kinds of phobia, some are common, like acrophobia, the fear of height; but many of them sound unimaginable to us, such as tetraphobia, the fear of the number four.  Nevertheless, phobia is one of the mental illnesses recognized by clinical psychology.  However, the misunderstanding of phobia leads many people to believe they have an actual phobia of something while in fact they are just afraid of them.  What’s more, this very professional term, “phobia”, has become some people’s scapegoat for their refusal of doing something, in other words, their “justifiable” excuse to escape from confronting difficult situation.

Take the example of “study phobia”.  “I’m not stupid or lazy; I’m scared, so I failed the test.” –very few people will say such thing because it’s the common sense that it will not be accepted as reasonable defense.  However, in some students’ mind, they believe that they are really suffering from “study phobia”; that’s the reason behind their vehement rejection to study even though they fully recognize they have to.  First of all, the fact that you don’t want to study doesn’t mean you have a phobia of study.  Usually, phobia comes with sudden change of mental and physical conditions, such as extreme distress, anxiety and panic, heart beating faster, shaking, or short of breathe.  Personally, I don’t think any student will have such symptoms when reading books or listening to lectures.  Maybe they will suffer from these mental and physical disorders when taking a test, but that is caused by stress, not phobia.

So, does “study phobia” really exist?  Although this term is not included in any official list of phobia, it’s definitely possible.  According to many psychiatrists, people can be taught to fear almost everything.  For example, if a small child is told not to play with dolphins in aquarium because they will eat him, this child could very possibly develop a fear of dolphins.  Even after he has grown up and learned that there is little chance that a dolphin will hurt him, he will still be afraid of this kind of ocean mammal (the fear of dolphin is called “delfiniphobia”).  Back to study phobia, if one student had an extremely painful experience on learning, such as continuous humiliation in tests, quizzes, and question-and-answer sessions, or repeated failure after tremendous hard work, day after day, year after year, eventually he could have a phobia of study.  However, whether you really suffer from study phobia or not doesn’t matter.  The most important thing is how you deal with your fear or refusal of study.  Instead of confronting “study phobia” or turn to a psychiatrist for help, some students just give up in school work.  When the sense of guilt comes to them, they will comfort themselves with the conjecture that they have “study phobia”.

In real world, people rarely describe themselves as having “study phobia” because so many might react with skepticism to that saying.  But what for those more “justified” phobia, like ergophobia, irrational and persistent fear of work or finding employment?  Many people learn to handle the situation by ‘leaving”.  While some “leave” by attempting to ignore their fear and continue their normal life, some “leave” by very irrational means, even turning to marijuana or other drugs.  Those people “surrender” to their fears and don’t want to consider some possible treatments because they are so “afraid”.  There are, actually, several methods of overriding the fears that intervene our personal life.  The most common one is called cognitive behavioral therapy, a therapy that may be performed in a group setting to help the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns.  As long as the patient is willing to undergo some discomfort in the process and make a continuous effort to change, the treatment will alleviate patient’s phobia in some level or even eliminate his fear of some particular situation.

It’s true that the world is a scary place.  We are constantly surrounded by things that frighten us.  If this kind of emotion has greatly affect our normal life, try to confront and overcome it.