Cherophobia (aversion to happiness): symptoms, causes, treatment

This phenomenon leads people to avoid situations that they believe can make them happy.

Cherophobia is a concept that can be shocking to many people, since its existence for many people, since its existence makes us question something that in theory we all seek: happiness. Cherophobia is the aversion to happiness, the rejection of those experiences or habits that we believe could make us happy.

How can it be that someone does not want to tend towards happiness? What is the reason for this psychological phenomenon? Let's see it in the following lines.

What is Cherophobia?

As we have seen summarized above, cherophobia is the aversion to happiness, the tendency to avoid what we associate with being happy.

Now, that doesn't mean that people are afraid of the idea of happiness itself; they are capable of thinking about the concept itself, but they want to get away from what makes them feel happy. they want to get away from what makes them feel happy in a minimally stable and consistent way. in a minimally stable and consistent way.

Causes

Human beings are capable of adopting an infinite number of lenses from which to perceive and value life, for better and for worse. This makes for relatively rare cases in which some individuals adopt mentalities that seem to be far removed from common sense..

As with most psychological phenomena, there is no single cause that leads directly to heterophobia as a consequence. Instead, there are several possible causes that make it more or less likely that we will fall into this state of mind.

One of the causes that have been hypothesized for some of these cases has to do with the pressure that exists today to practically force everyone to be happy all the time, as if it were part of their job and responsibilities. Feeling this link between happiness and obligations can, in some cases, cause aversion..

Another of the explanatory hypotheses of cherophobia is based on the idea that people who experience it are afraid of being happy at first and then seeing all that happiness crumble. The feeling of loss that would result from this is anticipated and generates so much discomfort that the pretension of being happy is completely renounced, even avoiding falling into this state by chance.

Is aversion to happiness a problem?

As strange as it may seem to avoid happiness, it is possible to come to understand people who seek to keep life simple and maintain an austere philosophy of life. However, it should be noted that cherophobia is not about humility and austerity. does not consist of humility and austerity, values that are not in themselvesvalues which in themselves are not negative and are in fact legitimate.

The characteristic of cherophobia is that in it the person makes active efforts to move away from happiness, even if doing so comes at a high cost. These efforts significantly interfere with people's quality of life, isolate them and make them less able to cope with day-to-day problems.

That is why Cherophobia is not just another attitude of life to which we must maintain a neutral attitudeIt is clearly a problem that makes people suffer.

Symptoms

Cherophobia is a complex phenomenon based on relatively abstract concepts, so it can manifest itself in different ways. However, it is possible to find some generalities in the symptoms of this problem, it is possible to find some generalities in the symptoms of this problem..

In general, those who experience cherophobia firsthand maintain a conservative profile and are not very open to new experiences.. In a way related to the latter, they tend to be introverted, since personal relationships bring a certain instability and exposure to emotionally charged situations, something that goes against their intention to always stay more or less the same, far from intensely joyful or pleasant experiences.

On the other hand, meeting new people can lead to seasons of calm and stability in a context of feeling fulfilled, something that could crack and generate feelings of loss and grief.. Let us remember that those who are averse to happiness do not want to be markedly unhappy, they simply seek to avoid suffering.

Treatment

Fortunately, cherophobia is neither a depression nor a neurological disorder in itself, so that psychological intervention should be able to make this form of discomfort subside to near disappearance, all within a relatively short period of time.all within a relatively short period of time.

Generally, the aversion to happiness is related to clinging to unadaptive beliefs and to an unhealthy and psychologically draining lifestyle. Therefore, cognitive restructuring can help, cognitive restructuring can helpas well as other forms of intervention in anxiety problems, such as exposure in controlled contexts to what is feared (in the most accentuated cases in which there are anxiety crises in front of specific stimuli).

Bibliographical references:

• Joshanloo, M., Weijers, D. (2013). Aversion to Happiness Across Cultures: A Review of Where and Why People are Averse to Happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies. 15 (3): 717–735.
• Robinson, J. (2014), What's so bad about feeling happy? Springer.