Trypophobia (fear of holes): causes, symptoms and treatment

A fear or feeling of strong disgust and anxiety produced by holes or lumps close together.

Phobias are irrational and persistent fears of objects, living things or situations to objects, living beings or situations that provoke an intense desire to flee from them. In case of not being able to escape from that which produces the fear, the person with phobia suffers intense anxiety and discomfort, in spite of knowing that they are irrational and disproportionate in relation to the real danger.

Trypophobia is an example of an irrational fear that is often irrational fear to which an innate origin is often attributed. In fact, it is a particularly well-known case among rare phobias because it has become a real Internet phenomenon. Let's see what it consists of.

What is trypophobia?

The word "trypophobia" literally means "fear of holes" in Greek. The term is very recent and is even believed to have been coined on an Internet forum. More generally, it refers to the anxiety provoked by repetitive patterns, mainly small holes repetitive patterns, mainly of small agglomerated holes, but also of lumps, circles or rectangles.but also lumps, circles or rectangles.

Typically, trypophobia is related to organic elements found in nature, such as lotus flower seeds, bee honeycombs, skin pores, cells, mold, corals or pumice stone. Objects created by people can also generate a similar reaction; examples are sponges, aerated chocolate and soap bubbles.

What trypophobic images have in common is the irregular or asymmetric configuration of the irregular or asymmetrical configuration of their constituent elements.. People who experience this phenomenon say that they feel disgust and discomfort when they see images like these, and the greater the contrast between their elements, the more unpleasant they find them to look at.

Unlike most phobic stimuli (elements that produce pathological fear), those that induce trypophobia in general cannot be considered dangerous or threatening. David Barlow (1988) called phobic responses that occur in the absence of threatening external stimuli "false alarms", as is the case in trypophobia.

The context: specific phobias

The DSM-5 manual includes several types of phobias within the category "specific phobias": animal panic, panic of animalsThese include panic of animals, panic of the natural environment, such as storm phobia, situational phobias (e.g. claustrophobia) and fear of blood, wounds and injections. Agoraphobia and social anxiety or phobia have their own sections in the DSM because of their frequency and severity.

Although specific phobias are the most common anxiety disorder, they are also the least disabling, since many times the person can easily avoid the phobic stimulus or rarely encounters it in his or her usual context. Extreme fear of snakes, for example, does not usually affect people living in large cities.

Among the specific phobias we find some very peculiar ones, such as the fear of money or the fear of long words, somewhat mischievously called "hypopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia" (we already mentioned these and other curious phobias in this article).

However, it must be taken into account that in the case of trypophobia what generates uneasiness is not a living being or object in concretebut a type of texture that can appear on practically all kinds of surfaces.

This texture is usually perceived through the visual system, and generates a response of strong aversion and anguish that is irrational. However, The fact that the person is aware that the reaction is irrational does not make it go away..

Symptoms

Some people with trypophobia describe extreme reactions resembling the physiological symptoms of panic attacks, such as tremors, tachycardia, nausea, or shortness of breath. They may also experience headaches and dermatological symptoms such as itching and goose bumps. Of course, these symptoms also cause the person to try to move away from the phobic stimulus, either by averting their gaze, covering their eyes or retreating to another location.

Unfortunately, the discomfort does not go away immediately, since the memory of the image continues to remain "marked" in the consciousness, and this continues to feed the appearance of the different symptoms (although as time goes by they become weaker until the anxiety crisis passes completely).

This change in the activity pattern of the nervous system of people with trypophobia usually appears when viewing images with color patterns that resemble a surface filled with close together, almost forming a mosaic of indentations.almost forming a mosaic of indentations. The contrast between the surface of these bodies and the darkness indicating the degree of depth of the hollows is usually the property of the image that has the most power to cause discomfort.

Let us now look at a classification of the symptoms of trypophobia distinguishing between its different types. Of course, normally not all of them occur at the same time, but only some of them, and in different degrees of intensity. Cases in which they are very extreme are uncommon; it is normal to feel significant discomfort without having a panic attack.

Physiological symptoms

Among the psychological symptoms produced by trypophobia are the following tremors, accelerated heart rate and muscle tension, as well as dizziness and the sensation that while exposed to the stimulus it is difficult to breathe. and the sensation that while exposed to the stimulus it is difficult to breathe.

Psychological symptoms

Among these psychological factors we find the entry into a state of alertness and catastrophic thoughts, such as for example that we will have a heart attack if we continue to look at that which causes us trypophobia.

Behavioral symptoms

The behavioral symptoms are, as in all the specific phobias, the tendency to avoid all those situations in which we suspect that the phobic stimulus will make us feel bad. will make us feel badand, once we are exposed to it, the tendency to run away.

Causes of this reaction to the grouped holes

Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins (2013), psychologists at the University of Essex, found in two studies that approximately 15% of participants appeared to be sensitive to trypophobic images, with this percentage being slightly higher in women than in men.

The authors attribute trypophobia to human evolution: the rejection of trypophobic-like images would have been useful for us to reject animals and animals of the same species. would have been useful for us to reject venomous animals, such as different types of snakessuch as different types of snakes, scorpions and spiders that present repetitive patterns on their bodies.

Similarly, trypophobic reactions might have been useful for avoid contaminants such as those that might be found in mold, open wounds, or maggot-ridden corpses.

Cole and Wilkins' explanation ties in with the concept of Biological readiness of Martin Seligman (1971), best known for the theory of learned helplessness with which he explained depression.

According to Seligman, over the course of evolution we living beings have not only adapted physically, but we have also we have also inherited predispositions to associate certain events because they increased our ancestors' chances of survival. For example, people would be especially primed to associate danger with darkness or insects. The irrationality of phobias would be explained because they have a biological, not a cognitive, origin.

Alternative explanations for this irrational anxiety

Other experts offer very different hypotheses about trypophobia. In an interview with NPR, anxiety psychiatrist Carol Matthews of the University of California, said that while any object is likely to provoke pathological fear, the case of trypophobia may be more likely to be due to suggestion than to fear, the case of trypophobia is more likely to be due to suggestion, she said..

According to Matthews, people who read about trypophobia are suggested by others who say they have felt anxious reactions to seeing the same images and pay attention to bodily sensations that their mind would otherwise filter out or ignore.

If we are asked if an image makes us feel disgusted or itchy, we are more likely to feel those sensations. we are more likely to feel those sensations than if nothing had been said to us; this is known as the priming effect.

Even in the case that we feel genuine disgust or anxiety when viewing trypophobic images, if they are not intense or frequent enough to interfere with our life we could not consider that we have a "hole phobia". It is important to keep this in mind, because in order for the fear to be considered a phobia (pathological fear) it is necessary that it significantly harms the person who suffers from it.

How to overcome this phobia?

As we have seen, a certain degree of trypophobia is normal in most people; we seem to be "designed" to feel at least some anxiety and discomfort when contemplating surfaces full of holes in close proximity to each other.

However, just as individual differences in personal traits such as height or strength occur to varying degrees among members of our species, in certain cases, trypophobia may also be a problem. can become so intense that it becomes an impediment to a normal life.. As is always the case with psychological phenomena, there are different degrees of intensity.

In these cases, it is advisable to go to psychological therapy, which will allow to learn dynamics to better manage the symptoms and make their impact is attenuated.

There are several ways to resolve the anxiety caused by this type of phobia. Some patients may require only one of these treatments, or several of them. In any case, they should consult a mental health professional, preferably one specialized in this type of disorder.

1. Psychological treatment

Specific phobias are treated mainly by means of exposure procedureswhich consist of confronting that which provokes fear, anxiety or disgust and drives us to escape. For exposure treatment to be effective, the person must pay attention to the phobic stimulus while exposed to it, which will progressively reduce the discomfort it causes.

It is a procedure in which the person gradually gains autonomy, although especially during the early stages of this the role of the therapist is of utmost importance for adequate progress.

In addition, it is important that the commitment of the patients is very important in order to go through this process.The patient's commitment is also very important, since they must make an effort to make progress and to face uncomfortable situations. Fortunately, motivation is also part of the role of therapists, who will also work on the way patients perceive the trypophobia they experience.

2. Pharmacological treatment

Pharmacological treatment has been shown to be ineffective in overcoming specific phobias; exposure and other variants of psychological intervention focused on interaction with phobic stimuli are recommended. In contrast, medication can be useful for agoraphobia and social phobia, particularly anxiolytics and antidepressants. As the latter is not the case for trypophobia, psychotherapy concentrates most efforts, and only if the distress is extreme.

However, this does not mean that in certain specific cases health personnel will avoid the use of drugs in all cases. There are some circumstances in which they may be useful, especially if the trypophobia overlaps with other psychological disorders; in any case, the indication or not of medication is subject to the criteria of the professionals who supervise each patient individually.

3. Exposure therapy

People with trypophobia, whether severe or irrelevant, can reduce the discomfort caused by this phenomenon reduced by exposure to the trypophobic images. images. Exposure can be applied gradually, i.e., starting with images that provoke moderate anxiety or disgust and progressively increasing the intensity of the phobic stimuli.

The well-known youtuber Pewdiepie has recently recorded himself "curing his trypophobia" using a kind of computer-assisted self-exposure. Some of the images he uses are microbes, human skin with holes in it, and worms crawling out of a dog's back. It doesn't seem to take trypophobia to be disgusted by images like these.