Gerontophobia: what it is, characteristics and causes

Gerontophobia is a social problem based on stereotypes and contempt for the elderly.

There is much we can learn from our elders. Their experiences, values and wisdom are treasures that older people can share with the new generations.

We should all value this stage of the life cycle, since if luck is on our side we will all reach old age one day, and we do not want to be treated badly when we are old.

Unfortunately, to this day there are still certain attitudes and behaviors that are anything but respectful of our seniors. The fear of growing old and the discrimination towards people in old age is called gerontophobia, a problem in which we are going to discuss in detail.a problem that we are going to deepen in the following.

Gerontophobia: the rejection of old age

Old age is natural, a period that most of us want to reach because it is synonymous with having had a long life. Everyone can consider old age as reaching one age or another, but it is generally agreed that we begin to be old when we surpass the magical age of 65, an age that in many countries coincides with retirement.

Living to that age implies having lived through many experiences, acquired a great deal of knowledge and reached a high level of reflection and maturity.. All older people have something to teach young people, knowledge that we should not underestimate. As much as they may seem like "small stories" to us, the exploits and stories of older people can be a great source of knowledge for us and a great relief and sense of being useful to them.

However, the attitude of many people towards the elderly is a mixture of fear and weariness. Many young people treat older people with animosity, seeing them as individuals who are no longer useful and who only do nothing but annoy.. Others see old age as a disease, a period in which everything declines, and make every effort to look forever young. These behaviors are typical of gerontophobia, the rejection of everything related to the elderly.

But growing old is not a disease, but a privilege that life grants us. Reaching old age is something we should all aspire to, wishing that nothing happens to us before it ends our lives. And of course, we also want to be treated with the same respect in our old age as we were when we were young. Emmanuel Kant defended that all human beings, including the elderly, deserve special and dignified treatment for being who they are, for being human beings like any other.

• You may be interested in "What are the differences between chronological age and Biological age?"

Gerontophobia: specific phobia and discriminatory attitude.

In a clinical sense, gerontophobia can be defined as the pathological fear of aging, as well as an excessive, irrational and persistent fear of old people or everything related to them. or everything related to them. Defined in this way, this phobia would meet the characteristics to be considered a specific phobia and, therefore, an anxiety disorder as they appear in the DSM-5.

People who suffer from gerontophobia first of all demonstrate an intense anguish towards the passage of time and the fact of growing old. This fear goes beyond the simple physical change, but includes a series of fears of diverse nature and complexity:

• Fear of physical weakness
• Fear of the appearance of diseases associated with old age.
• Fear of cognitive decline
• Fear of physical pain and excessive preoccupation with its occurrence
• Fear of having to depend on other people
• Idea that old age is synonymous with disability.

People with this type of specific phobia associate the passage of time on their body with the absolute loss of attributes, including beauty, intelligence, intelligence, and the ability to be beautiful.among them beauty, intelligence and independence. They are deeply afraid of no longer being a valid person in their own right and having to be helped to move on. In order to avoid seeing how old age takes its toll on their bodies, sufferers of this specific phobia are capable of compulsively undergoing surgical operations in order to appear eternally young.

But although it has the characteristics of a specific phobia, gerontophobia is better known as a social attitude in the form of discrimination towards the elderly and what is associated with them. That is, we say that a person is a gerontophobe when he/she rejects elderly people, discriminates against and belittles people who have reached a certain age or have an aged appearance.. This attitude is closely related to ageism, which is to discriminate against people according to their age, whether they are younger or older than the person being discriminated against.

• Related article, "How to help someone suffering from boredom in retirement?"

Where does this fear of old age come from?

Stereotypes associated with old age abound. Gerontophobic prejudices are nurtured by the social image of the elderly as a person with gray hair and wrinkles who cannot stand without a cane, needs a walker to walk, and even requires the help of a caregiver to eat and relieve him/herself. From an early age, we are inculcated with the stereotype that this is what older people are like, frail and annoying.

We do not learn these stereotypes explicitly, but rather through references in the media and in our family environment.. We attribute old age as something bad from what we see in movies, books, television and we even find them in the form of jokes in very bad taste in birthday cards. Our language is a reflection of this, since words such as "old", "old man" or "grandpa" are often accompanied by a multitude of negative connotations.

Old age is seen as an irreversible state of decline, the elderly as beings who have lost their human condition and value, becoming a burden for society, while youth is seen as an indisputable synonym of beauty, happiness and productivity. This stereotypical and negative view of people reaching old age is undoubtedly a social attitude that fosters and feeds gerontophobia, serving as a breeding ground for gerontophobia.This stereotypical and negative view of the elderly is undoubtedly a social attitude that fosters and feeds gerontophobia, serving as a breeding ground for further discrimination and victimization.

There are several beliefs in which a person with gerontophobia believes in the sense of social discrimination.

• Thinking that young is good and old is bad.
• Attributing to youth a lot of creativity and to old age the lack of new ideas.
• Assuming that youth is gain and maturity is loss.
• Thinking that youth is always fun and old people are unpleasant.
• In youth there is sex life and in old age there is none
• Young people are useful and old people are not
• Older people do not deserve dignity.

But it is not necessary to have this specific phobia and/or discriminatory social attitude to engage in gerontophobic behavior.. Gerontophobia is the result of a series of behaviors and beliefs that are widespread in the collective thinking about what older people are like and how they should be treated. These attitudes manifest themselves in subtle ways such as, for example, not hiring qualified people from the elderly onwards, ignoring somatic complaints of elderly patients in medical consultations attributing their ailments to aging, or speaking in a paternalistic tone to an elderly person.

In its most serious form, gerontophobia is hatred of the elderly, a pathological rejection of old age that comes from ignorance and is as serious for Western societies as sexism, racism, xenophobia and LGTBIphobia. The gerontophobe can even have supremacist behaviors towards the elderly, which among all types of discrimination is the one that makes the least sense since, unless he does something to avoid it, sooner or later it will become what he fears the most, since we all grow old.