Fear of numbers (arithmophobia or numerophobia): causes, symptoms and treatment

This rare anxiety disorder is related to mathematical and arithmetic concepts.

The world of psychopathologies is a complex world, in which there are many disorders. One of the most frequent are phobias, which are characterized because the person who experiences them feels an extreme and persistent irrational fear, as well as great anxiety and discomfort before a stimulus (situation, animal and object).

Phobias are part of the group of anxiety disorders, and can be experienced at any age. In this article we will talk about arithmophobia or numerophobia, the irrational fear of numbers, as well as how it can be treated.as well as the way in which it affects the day to day.

What is arithmophobia

Arithmophobia is an irrational fear of numbers, mathematics or arithmetic.. It is also called numerophobia and causes great discomfort to the sufferer, who tends to avoid the feared stimulus at all costs.

This disturbance can seriously affect the life of the individual with this disorder, since numbers and mathematical calculations are present in the daily life of people with this disorder.. Seeing numbers written on a blackboard or calculating shopping expenses can be situations that cause great discomfort to the phobic and that he/she tends to avoid.

Phobias are quite common anxiety disorders.There are different types: social phobias, agoraphobia and specific phobias. The latter are characterized because the phobic stimulus is a specific object, situation or animal, which provokes an irrational and disproportionate reaction of fear. Among these phobias we can find aerophobia or fear of flying, arachnophobia or fear of spiders or arithmophobia or fear of numbers.

Causes of phobias

Although it is possible to speak of a phobic person, phobias are learned. It is frequent that they appear after a traumatic experience which, in the case of arithmophobia, the person associates with numbers. This occurs through a type of associative learning called classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning is learning in which the individual associates an unconditioned stimulus (traumatic event) that elicits an unconditioned response (fear response) to an originally neutral stimulus but later known as a conditioned stimulus (numbers), which eventually elicits the unconditioned response, now called the conditioned response.

Other causes of this phobia

This phobia can also appear for other reasons. For example, that the person has had a bad experience with mathematics and, fear and insecurity of doing the calculations wrong, and manifests the symptoms of the phobia..

However, it does not necessarily have to be the phobic person who experiences the traumatic event in his own skin, but the observation of the traumatic event in another person, which would be known as vicarious conditioning, can provoke the development of this pathology.

On the other hand, several experts in phobias affirm that phobias have a Biological component, because it is common to acquire irrational fears. Fear is a very adaptive and useful emotion.It has served the human species to survive throughout the centuries. The emotion of fear originates from primitive associations, in the limbic system, and not from cognitive associations in the neocortex. This explains why a person, even knowing that he or she has a phobia, is unable to overcome it simply by reason.

Symptoms of number phobia

Regardless of the type of phobia, the symptoms are usually common. Being an anxiety disorder, anxiety is usually the main symptom along with fear, but there are other symptoms that are also common.. These symptoms are classified into three types: cognitive, behavioral and physical.

Among the cognitive symptoms we can highlight fear, anguish, confusion or catastrophic thoughts. Avoidance of the feared stimulus is a behavioral symptom presented by phobics. presented by phobics. Headaches, hyperventilation, nausea and stomach discomfort are physical symptoms experienced by people with fear of numbers.

Treatment of numerophobia

Phobias are very common disorders, and there is much scientific evidence regarding effective treatment. According to the results of these studies, cognitive behavioral therapy seems to be the most effective type of psychotherapy..

This form of therapy includes different techniques, of which relaxation techniques and exposure techniques are effective for the treatment of phobias. A technique that includes both and that provides good results in overcoming phobic disorders is systematic desensitization.

Systematic desensitization aims to expose the patient to the phobic stimulus in a gradual manner.. Before but, the patient must learn a series of coping strategies that help him/her to reduce the anxious symptomatology when facing the phobic stimulus.

In addition to cognitive behavioral techniques, other types of psychotherapy such as Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy have proven to be very effective. have proven to be very effective. Both forms of psychotherapy are considered third-generation therapy, which emphasize the patient's functional context and acceptance.