Haphephobia: causes, symptoms and treatment

The irrational fear of physical contact with other people greatly damages social relationships.

Phobias are anxiety disordersThis means that they cause great discomfort to the sufferers, who feel anxious symptoms when they are in front of the phobic stimulus or imagine it. Although there are phobias that are almost not disabling, except in specific cases, due to the infrequency with which the phobic encounters the stimulus, in other cases the opposite occurs and it is complicated to lead a normal life for the sufferer.

In this sense, one of the most complex phobias is haphephobia, which is the irrational fear of being touched.. Fortunately, phobias can be treated and the patient can overcome this disorder, and this is no exception. In this article we explain what this disorder is and what is its treatment.

What is hafefophobia?

Haphyphobia is a specific phobic disorder (as opposed to agoraphobia or social phobia) that causes great suffering in the sufferer. (as opposed to agoraphobia or social phobia) that causes great suffering in the person who suffers from it.

It is an irrational fear of great intensity that manifests itself when the individual suffering the phobia comes into physical contact with other people and is touched.. It produces a series of cognitive, physiological or behavioral responses, including extreme anxiety and the attempt to avoid the feared stimulus to reduce the unpleasant sensation.

Haphephobics suffer from serious social problemsThey fear interaction with other individuals in case they come into contact with them. Therefore, a simple greeting or hugging their own parents or spouses becomes a situation that produces intense feelings of fear. These subjects may avoid situations where they may come into contact with others, even acquaintances.

Causes

Phobias usually originate in the most ancestral part of the brain, and according to some experts, we are biologically programmed to suffer from fears of certain stimuli. biologically programmed to suffer from fears of certain stimuli.. This, which has worked so well for centuries to preserve the existence of human beings, sometimes causes this type of disorders nowadays. That is why phobias do not respond to logical arguments, and the reaction of alertness takes over the subject, who feels as if he/she were facing a real danger.

Phobias, therefore, develop thanks to one of the most basic forms of learning in humans, a type of associative learning called classical conditioning that was first discovered by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who conducted a series of experiments on dogs.

His initial goal was to measure the salivation of the dogs, so he gave food to these animals, since saliva is a reflex action produced to promote digestion. Eventually, Pavlov realized that although at first the dogs salivated when presented with food, after several trials, the mere presence of the researcher triggered salivation, as the animals had learned that when the researcher appeared, they would receive the food. Classical conditioning causes an association between a stimulus that provokes a reflex response and another that does not, but that in the end the latter ends up producing the same response as the other stimulus with which it is associated.

Later, it was John B. Watson, an American scientist, who proved that classical conditioning also occurred in humans. In fact, he was able to make a child learn a phobia of a white rat that previously did not cause any discomfort to the little one.

You can learn more about this study in the following video:

Other origins of phobias

Phobias, therefore, are learned by classical conditioning due to the fact that the person undergoes a significant traumatic event.. But phobic disorders, and especially in the case of haphophobia, vicarious conditioning can also be a cause of this pathology.

Vicarious conditioning is nothing more and nothing less than learning by observationFor example, the person may have seen a movie in which the main actor catches a disease by coming into contact with the skin of others. The phobic person may suffer irrational fear and unrealistic beliefs as a consequence of the emotional impact caused by some event he/she observes, in this case, the movie.

Symptoms of fear of contact with other people

Phobias, as I have previously mentioned, produce cognitive, physical, physiological and behavioral symptoms.

They are the following:

• CognitiveCognitive: anxiety and anguish, lack of concentration, nervousness, thoughts of contagion, thoughts of imminent death, terror and fear, thoughts of running out of air.
• Physical and physiologicalPhysical and physiological: headaches, tremors, stomach upset, rapid heartbeat, hyperventilation, etc.
• BehavioralAvoidance of the feared stimulus.

Treatment and therapy

Phobias are one of the main reasons why people require psychological assistance, and despite the fact that they cause great discomfort, they respond really well to psychological treatment.. In extreme cases, pharmacological treatment is indicated, but always together with psychotherapy.

One of the most widely used therapeutic models is cognitive behavioral therapy, which aims to modify the internal events (thoughts, beliefs and emotions) and behavior of people to improve their well-being. Relaxation techniques, cognitive restructuring or exposure techniques are some of the most commonly used for this type of pathology.

Among the latter, systematic desensitization systematic desensitizationwith which the patient performs a series of exercises that expose him/her to the phobic stimulus gradually while learning more adaptive strategies to cope with fear and anxiety.

In recent years, new therapeutic methods are showing their effectiveness in different scientific studies. Among these, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) stand out. New technologies are also being applied in therapeutic sessions, since virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality are useful tools that are increasingly used to expose increasingly used to expose the patient to the phobic stimulus.

In fact, it is currently possible to find "apps" for the treatment of phobias and for the treatment of anxiety disorders. In the following links you can find more information:

• 8 apps to treat phobias and fears from your smartphone.
• 15 apps to treat anxiety