Symptoms, causes, and treatment of specter phobia
Have you ever seen a ghost or felt the presence of spirits around you? The supernatural world may be alien to you and you do not feel any fear, but the truth is that these types of paranormal events inspire fear and even terror. This is the case of spectrophobia or fear of ghosts , a disorder that can turn your life into a horror movie and that, like all phobias, reduces your quality of life. And also like all phobias, spectrophobia can be overcome. With the help of our dictionary of phobias we will tell you what their causes, symptoms and treatment are .
What is spectrophobia
Spectrophobia is the fear of ghosts, spirits, or ghosts . In general, all those beings that can appear in paranormal contexts. And the truth is that we are not going to go into assessing the existence of ghosts because fear of them does exist as well as its corresponding phobia.
A fear becomes a phobia when it is irrational, generates a high degree of anxiety and conditions the life of the person who suffers it. You could say that it is not usual to meet a ghost and that it is not as if you have a phobia of dogs , which are anywhere. But it is that a ghost, a spirit or a spectrum can also be anywhere.
People who suffer from spectrophobia tend to avoid places like cemeteries or special dates like Halloween . But the darkness of the night is also conducive to the appearance of these supernatural beings. The wind hitting the window, a creak on the steps of the house, a current that slams a door shut … These are situations that can cause real terror .
The problem of spectrophobia
We can intuit an added problem that does not occur with other phobias . When you are afraid of flying , it is a concrete situation; when you are afraid of an animal, it is something you can see; Even when you are afraid of feelings like loneliness or falling in love, they are stimuli that you can easily identify. But the same is not the case with ghosts.
You don’t always see a ghost, a specter, a spirit . You can notice their presence by a suggestion and this can happen at any time. However, it is not something that you can categorically affirm that you have seen it. This complicates both the identification of the phobic disorder and its treatment . How do you deal with a ghost?
Symptoms of fear of ghosts
Spectrophobia manifests itself with the same physical symptoms as anxiety . A discomfort, numbness of the muscles , excessive sweating , palpitations , shortness of breath or dizziness . The fear is so intense that it can lead to an anxiety attack or a panic attack. But there is still more.
Because this phobia of ghosts also presents psychic symptoms in the form of obsessive thoughts , irrational, distorted or catastrophic . Fear envelops the mind in a succession of terrifying ideas about ghosts and the danger posed by these beings that, by the way, no one is sure if they exist or not.
Doubt makes the person who suffers from this phobia begin to think that something bad is happening in their mind, that something is not working well and they feel guilty and with low self-esteem. And when irrational fear prevails , everything else falls apart. We must recover reason, but first we can try to understand the reasons that can lead a person to suffer from spectrophobia.
Why are you afraid of ghosts
It should be clarified that it is not necessary to see a ghost for all the reactions typical of phobias to be triggered , that is, both the anxiety symptoms and the avoidance response. It is enough if someone tells you a story about ghosts or spirits or that you see it on television. And we would also like to emphasize how difficult it is to avoid being exposed to such a stimulus. A ghost can appear at any time, place or situation.
And where does this fear of ghosts come from? Well, culturally they are not our favorite beings. It is true that there are spirits that appear to favor you as fairy godmothers, to protect you, but generally all these supernatural beings cause fear due to their ignorance and misunderstanding .
Literature and cinema do not help to see ghosts from a friendlier perspective, so the danger associated with them can even be logical. What is not logical or rational is that they produce that fright in the form of a limiting phobia that drastically reduces your quality of life.
And, of course, we cannot rule out the most common reason for the development of spectrophobia: conditioning by traumatic experience . It is tempting to think that it is not very likely that anyone has had an experience, traumatic or not, with a ghost, but we return again to that its real presence is not necessary to believe in its existence.
As with other phobias, sometimes the cause or origin of fear is surprising and there is no direct relationship with that person’s past or childhood. In these cases, a previous anxiety disorder is reached that causes a fear to become an irrational fear or a terror. There are many cases of phobias that appear precisely because of the fear that a prolonged state of anxiety causes.
Treatment of spectrophobia
Despite being a complex disorder, spectrophobia can be overcome. To do this, you have to put yourself in the hands of a psychology professional , since phobias also have a very important anxiety component and lead to obvious emotional wear.
The star treatment for phobias is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , also used to overcome problems such as anxiety and depression. This therapy works thought first , that distorted thought that makes the person see ghosts as a very dangerous stimulus. When we feel danger, our anxiety enters the picture and when that danger is not even real, the anxiety overflows.
A psychologist helps to dismantle these irrational thoughts about ghosts and spirits and from there you can start working on behavior . Avoiding avoidance is the goal. Stop being afraid of ghosts and stop avoiding those situations in which you assume that you can find them. How do you get to change the avoidance behavior?
Exposure Therapy is generally used . A therapy that should always be done under supervision because it is a gradual approach to the stimulus that triggers the phobia . In the absence of real ghosts, the therapist will expose the person with spectrophobia to different situations or images to verify that the danger is not such, that nothing happens.
Any treatment to overcome a phobia must be accompanied by relaxation techniques . Mindfulness practice and breathing exercises are a safe investment to avoid future relapses and to approach therapy with less anxiety.