Fear of mirrors (catoptrophobia): causes, symptoms and therapy

A strange phobia but one that affects more people than one would expect.

There are many types of phobia that we have talked about in Psychology and Mindsome of them very rare or strange, as is the case of trypophobia. Phobias share many symptoms in common and are quite frequent anxiety disorders.

All human beings can feel fear, which is an adaptive emotion that has allowed the human species to survive over the centuries. However, this adaptive emotion can become a situation that produces great discomfort and even irrational terror in the face of some stimuli that are not dangerous at all.

In fact, one of these phobias is catoptrophobia or eisoptrophobia.. The irrational fear of something as commonplace as looking in the mirror.

What is the fear of mirrors about?

The fear of mirrors or catoptrophobia is a specific phobia that belongs to the group of anxiety disorders.Its characteristic symptom is the discomfort and great anxiety that people with phobia suffer. Within the phobic disorders there are three groups: social phobia, agoraphobia or specific phobias. In the latter case, they appear in the presence of certain objects or specific situations, such as spiders (arachnophobia), flying in an airplane (aerophobia) or, in this case, the presence of mirrors or the fact of looking at oneself in them.

Phobias cause the sufferer to try to avoid the feared situation or object and, for example, not to go to places where he/she may encounter the phobic stimuli, something that can alter the normality of his/her life. Perhaps in the case of fear of mirrors, this pathology rarely affects the person's life in a very negative way except for the discomfort it causes, unlike other phobias such as claustrophobia, that the patient is unable to get on public transportation to go to work, thus hindering his or her work and social life.

However, it can happen that these people avoid, for example, going to their friends' house so as not to have to face the fear.. It should not be forgotten that mirrors are quite common objects, and the discomfort can occur at any time, unlike other phobias in which the person very rarely comes into contact with the phobic stimulus, such as snakes.

Catastrophobia can sometimes be confused with spectrophobia, which is the fear of the existence or appearance of specters or spirits, as people with this phobic disorder may be afraid of seeing their own reflection in the mirror and think that the figure may emerge from the object.

What causes catoptrophobia?

Phobias can have different causes; however, most experts agree, most experts agree that irrational fears are learned.. Until just a few decades ago, the belief was that phobias were genetically inherited, but this view changed following research into classical conditioning, a type of associative learning originally discovered by a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov.

He wanted to experiment with the saliva of dogs and therefore brought them food. Dogs salivate when they are about to eat to facilitate the digestion process. Pavlov noticed that at first the dogs salivated in the presence of food, but that after several trials, the presence of the researcher alone caused the dogs to salivate even without food being present. This meant that the dogs had associated Pavlov's presence with food and, therefore, the scientist elicited the response that originally elicited food alone.

Fear learning in humans

Pavlov's experiments were the beginning of a new paradigm in psychology: behaviorism.. But this current did not become popular until John B. Watson popularized it in the United States and, as a consequence, in the world. Watson experimented with a small child to make him afraid of certain stimuli, i.e., to provoke a phobia. This study is one of the most controversial in psychology, and is called the "Little Albert experiment".

In addition to this theory, another hypothesis that has been put forward about the origin of phobias is that some stimuli are more likely to be learned because we are biologically prepared to do so in order to avoid the disappearance of our species. Therefore, when we learn something, mechanisms are produced that have little to do with reason and logic, and that is why it is difficult to overcome a phobia even though we are aware that the fear is irrational.

On the other hand, this phobia can develop due to superstition or false beliefs, as there is a popular belief that breaking a mirror means that bad luck will accompany us for seven years.

Symptoms of catoptrophobia

The symptoms of the different types of phobias, whether specific or complex (social phobia and agoraphobia), are common among them. Anxiety is undoubtedly the most characteristic feature, which is accompanied by great discomfort and an attempt to avoid mirrors. The person may experience the phobia when looking at mirrors or at his or her image in mirrors.

In general, we speak of three types of symptoms of catoptrophobia:

• Cognitive symptoms.Cognitive symptoms: experience of fear, great anxiety or anguish. Avoidance thoughts.
• Behavioral symptomsFlight behavior or avoidance of the stimulus.
• Physical symptomsrapid pulse, tachycardia, headache, stomach discomfort, etc.

How to overcome this phobia

Fortunately, phobias can be cured, phobias can be cured, and psychological treatment works very well for this type of disorder.. Since its origin is learned, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has proven to be effective and the prognosis in the recovery of patients is very good.

Within this type of therapy it is common to use some methods such as relaxation techniques or exposure techniques. One type of exposure technique widely used is systematic desensitization, which consists of gradually exposing the patient to the phobic stimulus while learning more adaptive coping strategies. For example, it is possible to start by showing the patient images of some mirrors, and at the end of the therapy the patient is able to pick up a mirror with his own hands and look at himself in it without any fear.

Now, this type of therapy, which works so well, belongs to the second generation therapies, but the third generation therapies, which are more recent, have also been shown to be effective for any anxiety disorder. Among the latter are: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

In extreme cases, pharmacological treatment is also a therapeutic action to consider, but it should always be combined with psychotherapy so that symptoms are maintained over time.