Treatment of the soul

What is the fear of long words called?

This disorder is called hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. It is expressed in a subconscious fear of writing, voicing, or reading words with a large number of letters. The individual is afraid not only of making a mistake, but also experiences discomfort from visual or auditory perception of information in this form.

The name phobia of long words itself causes misunderstanding, given the disease it characterizes. Even an absolutely healthy person will not experience much joy when reading and perceiving a complex sentence of 34 characters. The abbreviated name of the diagnosis is sesquipedaliophobia.

Treatment

Since the fear of long words is a mild mental disorder, first of all, you need to seek help from a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Identification by a specialist of the possible causes of a phobia is the most important step towards getting rid of this mental disorder. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia cannot be treated with tablets. Professional psychological help and sometimes psychotherapy sessions will be required.

Good results are obtained by combining medical assistance and working on your diction by learning various tongue twisters, so the help of a speech therapist will be very helpful.

With each tongue twister perfected to perfection, a person will feel more and more self-confidence. And if these classes are reinforced with an impromptu performance of reading texts with complex and large words in a circle of friends or relatives, then the fear of long words disappears quite quickly.

It is recommended to train with tongue twisters while in front of a mirror, so that you can correct your facial expressions and subsequently feel your facial expression without a mirror.

Words should be pronounced slowly and with maximum clarity so that all letters are distinguishable. You should also pay attention to voice strength and intonation, and make adjustments if necessary.

Why are people afraid of long words?

Phobias arise in different ways for different people. Most often, fear of long words develops gradually, over several years. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobia is usually provoked by a feeling of shame over the inability to pronounce or write long words correctly. This phobia is a direct consequence of various complexes and self-doubt, when a person experiences a deep conviction that he is not smart enough to pronounce, use or understand words of significant length. That is why such a disorder is often found in those who experience fear if they have to speak in front of an audience.

Difficulties in handling long words are due to the fact that not everyone is able to pronounce them correctly the first time. The resulting hesitations cause ridicule from the listeners, which hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobes are so afraid of. It is important to note that the cause of fear is not the words themselves, but the mistakes made in them, which can cause the audience to doubt the speaker’s competence and lower his social status. Therefore, many experience fear not only of having to say a long word out loud, but even just by looking at it.

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Psychologists identify the following groups of reasons against which this phobia develops:

past experience (if a person in the past tried himself, or saw someone else try, for example, to pronounce a long word, but failed and was ridiculed, then in the future such experience, as they say, “paralyzes” him when he has to deal with words of considerable length);
biological factors (in some cases, this phobia may be due to heredity and other factors, for example, if a person stutters);
environment (a similar phobia is provoked by friends, acquaintances or relatives who ridicule unsuccessful attempts to use long words).

Symptoms

Symptoms of the disorder can be described as mental, emotional, or physical.

Many people feel panicked at the sight or thought of long words.
Physical symptoms: crying, running away, trembling, feeling sick, headaches, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath.
A person feels fear and horror. His brain creates very bad pictures in which he is embarrassed and gets into an unpleasant situation.
Often the patient understands that his fear is irrational, but is unable to control himself. Powerless to think rationally.

Reasons for developing a fear of long words

Like any other irrational fear, the fear of long words will most likely be caused by some traumatic situation. Subsequently, the fear of a repetition of this situation is fixed in the person’s mind and takes the form of a phobia that can significantly worsen a person’s professional, social or personal relationships with others.

In the case of fear of long words, a person is panicked about the reaction of others to his incorrect pronunciation of a long word, feels shame and increasing anxiety.

Particularly noticeable negative consequences of the presence of this phobia can be observed in adolescents, who, due to their age, are very vulnerable to the ridicule of their peers. Because of the fear of pronouncing long words, the child’s academic performance suffers; he may become withdrawn and avoid any communication, especially answering the teacher’s questions and making a report in front of the whole class.

Fear of long words

Fear is a completely natural feeling, which is an important component of the instinct of self-preservation. But sometimes this feeling becomes uncontrollable and completely irrational; such fears are called phobias. They can take on completely bizarre forms and even seem funny to other people. For example, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (the so-called fear of long words) may seem to few people to be a problem worthy of attention. Meanwhile, such fear is quite real and some people really suffer from it.

What is a phobia?

To understand the nature of the fear of pronouncing long words, it is worth understanding what a phobia is and why it can arise. Obsessive fear is one of the most common neurotic diseases these days. The number of people susceptible to this scourge is growing year by year.

Do not think that this feeling is far-fetched and may not be taken into account. Phobias are scary because when meeting an object that causes fear, a person cannot control himself. Feelings of fear can lead to panic attacks and are accompanied by attacks of nausea, dizziness, as well as increased blood pressure and rapid heartbeat. Phobias are always associated with a specific object, and their main danger is that if you do not want to fight fear, it can cover an increasing number of objects and situations, which can significantly complicate communication with people. Neurotic disorders of this kind do not affect a person’s intellectual abilities. People suffering from phobias, as a rule, are able to critically perceive their condition, but do not find the strength to control it.

Research into such diseases began at the end of the 19th century, so at the moment it is possible to talk about a thorough study of this phenomenon. The cause of a phobia can be traumatic events or organic brain damage. Therefore, treatment is selected individually, in accordance with the cause that causes obsessive fear.

Fear of long words

The plots of phobias are constantly changing - some become a thing of the past, and new ones come to replace them. Today there are more than 300 types of different obsessive fears. Their names are most often given in Latin after the name of the object that causes fear, adding to it the prefix “phobia”. But this is not the case with the fear of long words, which is called hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. It is impossible to draw a conclusion about the name of fear from this name; it rather speaks of a fear of hippopotamuses. It’s hard to say what the scientists were guided by when they gave such a name to the fear of long words, maybe they just wanted to come up with a longer word? Then they coped with their task brilliantly - the word has 34 letters and it is the longest one used in the modern Russian language.

A person suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia tries to skip complex and long words when reading and avoid speaking when speaking, experiencing an irrational fear of them. Psychologists see two possible reasons for the occurrence of this phobia.

Some experts believe that the causes of many strange phobias, including the fear of long words, lie in excessive internal tension and anxiety. Negative emotions find a way out in the form of strange fears or rituals that help a person maintain self-confidence. Most often, phobias affect people who want to keep everything in their lives under control. If a person is not sure that he can cope with the pronunciation of long words, he begins to be afraid of them.

Other psychologists believe that the origins of this phobia must be sought in childhood. Perhaps the child experienced severe stress when he could not answer the teacher’s question or was ridiculed by his peers when he pronounced a word incorrectly.

In each of these cases, competent work of a psychologist is required. Moreover, fear of long words does not require medicinal treatment methods; usually it completely disappears after a course of psychotherapy. The main condition will be the person’s desire to get rid of the phobia.

Reasons why phobias of long words occur

Factors in which this fear manifests itself:

Hereditary predisposition if one of the family members stuttered or had other speech defects.
Psychological trauma due to an unsuccessful public performance.
Children's problems associated with the normal pronunciation of speech combinations or sounds.
Fear of becoming ignorant or a laughing stock in the eyes of others.

Phobia of fear of long words often arises as a result of the professional characteristics of the individual. This anxiety is characteristic of individuals speaking in front of a large crowd of people. The risk of an attack is especially high for those who prepare a speech for obviously negative listeners. If appropriate measures are not taken in a timely manner, a person loses the opportunity for career advancement in certain areas.

Causes of fear

The longest phobia in the Russian language does not appear out of nowhere, it does not appear from birth. Panic fear is always based on certain reasons that can be identified after close work with a psychotherapist. The list of main reasons includes:

Dependence on the opinions of others;
Lack of self-confidence;
Traumatic situations in the past (especially in adolescence);
Ridicule in childhood;
Fear of loss of social status;
Fear of appearing funny, making mistakes in speaking and becoming the object of doubt.

Fear of long words in English or another language is a condition that makes a person fixate on a problem and panic. Let's look at the main symptoms?

There are a number of reasons that can be a decisive factor in the emergence of a fear of long words:

Heredity (one of the parents stuttered or had a speech impediment that did not allow them to fully pronounce words).
Unsuccessful attempt at public speaking, psychological trauma.
Problems with pronunciation of certain combinations of sounds, stuttering.
Fear of being ridiculed, looking stupid, uneducated in the eyes of others.

The area of human activity significantly influences the development of the fear of long words. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is more likely to attack a public figure, whose occupation requires him to speak in front of large audiences, than a driver or seamstress. The likelihood of developing this phobia is especially increased in those who speak in front of a deliberately negative audience. For such people, a number of professional opportunities are conditionally closed.

Signs and Symptoms of Fear of Long Words

Typically, people who suffer from a fear of long words try to avoid any situations in which they may need to speak, read, or even hear difficult words. As a result of a person’s encounter with a long word, he begins to experience an attack of inexplicable fear, accompanied by physical symptoms:

cardiopalmus;
perspiration, sweating;
dyspnea;
panic horror;
nausea;
temporary loss of articulate speech;
in rare cases, even loss of consciousness is possible.

It is worth noting that the intellectual abilities of a person with hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobia do not suffer from the presence of this disease. Patients with a fear of long words are fully aware of the problem, treat it critically, and often make all the necessary efforts to successfully get rid of it - on their own or by contacting a specialist.

Signs and symptoms of the disease

The desire to avoid a potentially dangerous situation becomes habitual for the patient and leaves an imprint on his entire behavior. Hearing complex verbal structures, he experiences attacks of inexplicable fear. At the somatic level, the disease makes itself felt:

attacks of panic horror;
the occurrence of shortness of breath and sweating;
increased heart rate;
fainting;
a feeling of tremor in the hands and dry mouth;
dilated pupils;
changes in skin color;
nausea, headache, difficulty breathing.

Embarrassed by his awkwardness, the patient loses the ability to think rationally, feeling an overwhelming powerlessness and inability to master the traumatic situation.

With hippopotomonstrosesquipedalophobia, a person’s intellectual level does not decrease. Individuals, independently analyzing their fears, courageously and successfully overcome this unpleasant disease. Others need professional help.

Symptoms of a phobia

Symptoms characteristic of a fear of long words:

fear of public speaking, reading aloud, reciting poetry;
discomfort when communicating on scientific or other specific topics that involve pronouncing complex definitions and terms;
sometimes unreasonable anxiety appears even when seeing or hearing long words;
Difficulties arise when visiting restaurants with exotic menus, solving crossword puzzles and the like.

Fear of long words sometimes develops into panic, expressed by increasing anxiety, increased heart rate, lack of air, dizziness, and fear of losing control over the situation.

Causes of phobia

The fear of big words can have different reasons. Often develops due to childhood trauma (the child could be ridiculed because of the incorrect pronunciation of a long word, complex term or definition).

Ridicule can also cause fear in adolescence, less often in adults.

Possible development due to complexes. A person is afraid to say, read or write incorrectly. The fear is especially strong if one day a mistake was made in front of a large audience, after which people laughed: the speaker is afraid of repeating the shame, public humiliation.

Sometimes the speaker is afraid of complex constructions because he believes that he will seem incompetent on the issue under discussion if he gets it wrong. There may be fear of a decrease in social status, loss of respect in society, negative opinions of important people, authorities, idols, friends or demanding relatives.

Children often learn fear from their parents: if mom or dad treated complex terminology with fear, the child will feel threatened and subconsciously consider the object dangerous.

Fear is also typical for people with speech defects (stuttering, lisp, burr).

Causes of the disease

The main causes of the disease include the occurrence of traumatic situations of various kinds, which, once they appear, can become fixed in the mind. Gradually, problematic situations become phobias, significantly worsening a person’s quality of life in almost all its spheres.

Often the patient is afraid of reactions from those around him when he makes mistakes in the pronunciation of certain long words. Typically, such fear is characteristic of teenagers, who are especially vulnerable to their peers and close environment.

The child becomes withdrawn, experiencing his shortcomings; he often receives the teacher’s questions with irritation and refuses to answer at the blackboard. Conflict situations often arise in which the child cannot explain the real reason for his behavior.

The causes of the disease may be:

diffidence;
bad experience of the past;
high degree of dependence on the opinions of others;
traumatic situations experienced in the past (especially in childhood);
constant ridicule of the child;
fear of loss of social status;
biological aspects (in some cases, the disease may be due to heredity and other reasons, for example, stuttering);
fear of becoming funny in the eyes of others.

Constantly experiencing internal complexes, the patient becomes extremely dependent on the judgments - even erroneous ones - of the people around him. Gradually, as the illness progresses, the patient is increasingly visited by thoughts about his incompetence and lack of proper professionalism. An inferiority complex begins to dominate.

Impact on quality of life

You don't need to know what the fear of long words is called. The main thing is that it can significantly complicate a person’s life. At puberty this is expressed especially hard. Among the consequences: isolation, manifestation of aggression, difficulties with answers at the board, inferiority complex. For a developing personality, these factors, coupled with the ridicule of others, are not the best start to growing up.

Experienced teachers try to replace the oral form of the answer with a written version. However, in standard schools, an individual approach is practically not used, which aggravates the already difficult situation of children suffering from a fear of long words. As a result, students lose interest in learning and develop problems in related areas of life. Such individuals often “withdraw into themselves”, have a minimal vocabulary, and are unable to achieve career growth in a prestigious position or have a wide circle of contacts. The fear of long words is not fatal, but its danger is expressed by a depressed psychosomatic state, destructive consequences for the individual’s self-esteem and feelings.

What is the fear of long words called - Center of Miracles

Many people have heard about uncontrollable fears, which are also called phobias. Some of them take on bizarre shapes that seem funny to most healthy people. However, a person suffering from such a disorder does not see anything fun in it. Fear can make his life significantly more difficult.

One of the most amazing and unusual phobias is the fear of speaking long words, which has a Latin name: hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

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The paradox is that the name of this fear is the longest word that is used in modern Russian.

In order to understand the basis of this phenomenon, let's consider what phobias are and why they arise.

Phobia, or obsessive fear, is one of the most common neurotic diseases of our time. The number of people experiencing uncontrollable panic attacks is increasing year by year.

A phobia is an irrational obsessive fear that occurs only in certain situations; it can be accompanied by various unpleasant sensations: increased blood pressure, dizziness, rapid heartbeat, nausea.

A phobia is always associated with a specific object. The main danger of such disorders is that fear can cover an increasing number of objects and situations and seriously complicate communication with people if a person indulges it.

This neurotic disorder does not affect intellectual abilities. People, as a rule, perceive their condition critically, although they cannot control it.

The first cases of such diseases appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Psychiatrists and psychologists of various schools and directions have studied this phenomenon in detail, thanks to which we can get a fairly clear answer to the question about the causes of phobic disorders.

Obsessive fears can be a consequence of traumatic events or be based on organic brain damage. In each individual case, the doctor determines the cause individually and prescribes treatment in accordance with it.

The plots of phobias change historically, new objects appear, and old ones become a thing of the past.

Currently, there are about 300 types of obsessive fears.

Phobias are often mentioned in works of art; their strange and poetic names inspire musicians to create new compositions. So, we can say that phobias are gradually becoming an important part of culture.

The fear of long words manifests itself in the fact that a person tries not to pronounce complex sound combinations, because he is afraid that he will get confused and say them incorrectly.

Like any phobia, this fear is irrational, that is, it has no real basis. A person simply experiences horror at the sight of long words and tries to skip them when reading, especially in colloquial speech.

Let's consider what may cause the fear of long words. In psychology, there are several views on this problem.

Many psychologists believe that the cause of most of these strange phobias lies in constant internal tension, anxiety, “corroding” a person from the inside. Negative emotions look for a way out and find it in the form of bizarre fears or rituals with the help of which a person maintains self-confidence.

Most often, people who strive to control their entire life, any external events, as well as their own characteristics suffer from phobias. To feel good, it is very important for them to maintain this illusion. They are frightened by those phenomena that seem uncontrollable to them. If a person is not confident in his ability to pronounce complex words correctly and clearly, he begins to experience fear of them.

In this case, the task of a specialist working with a person is to help him find the cause of increased anxiety and the need for control. In the process of psychotherapy, this cause can be eliminated.

Psychologists of other schools believe that the source of fear can be a childhood experience that was so strong that it became fixed in the mind. A phobia that occurs in certain situations is a warning sign that signals that a painful experience may be repeated.

The fear of long words can arise as a result of an unpleasant incident when a child was unable to answer a teacher’s question or caused laughter from peers by pronouncing some phrases incorrectly.

Then the treatment involves working with the patient’s past in combination with the so-called coping method, when the patient gradually, step by step, gets used to the frightening object, in this case trying to pronounce long words under the supervision of a psychologist. This method is very effective and can be used to achieve rapid improvement.

Fear of long words does not require medication. In most cases, the phobia is completely cured after a course of psychotherapy.

The most important step on the path to full recovery is the desire of the person himself to change and get rid of fear.

There are a huge number of phobias in the world, and many have never heard of some of them, for example, the fear of long words, which is called hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

Fear is a completely normal feeling for any person. This is one of the most important components of the instinct of self-preservation, so its absence can be confidently considered a pathology. However, some people experience uncontrollable fear. If the condition has become irrational and cannot be controlled, in medical practice it is called a phobia.

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Such manifestations of mental imbalance can take quite funny forms. Psychologists know a huge number of phobias that are associated with certain objects or actions. Most of them have rather complex names, but the leader in this case can be considered hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. This disease has absolutely nothing to do with hippos, pedals, or monsters. People who suffer from this phobia are afraid of long words.

This is probably one of the most successful combinations of the name of the diagnosis and the main symptom. However, some people believe that the fear of speaking long words is a minor problem. This can only be said by those who do not have the slightest idea about such psychological pathology. In fact, a phobia of long words greatly interferes with normal life and brings a lot of inconvenience.

To understand the problem of fear of long words, you need to have an idea of where this fear comes from. In the modern world, obsessive phobias are increasingly penetrating people's lives. This is due to the crazy pace of life and frequent stress leading to neuroses. As a result, all kinds of phobias have become one of the most common neurotic ailments in recent years.

Until now, many do not realize the scale of the problem, believing that these fears are far-fetched and cannot cause real harm to a person or others. However, it is worth remembering that any mental disorder can quickly move into the active stage. Thus, a person suffering from a phobia may lose control of himself in the most inappropriate place.

As a rule, phobias lead to panic attacks, accompanied by a feeling of nausea and dizziness. At the same time, blood pressure rises, heart rate increases and a lack of air is felt. This condition can be dangerous if there is no help nearby at the right time.

Any phobia is tied to a specific object or action. This condition requires treatment, since failure to combat one's fears can lead to the fact that the number of objects and situations will constantly increase. As a result, there can no longer be any talk of normal life in society.

It is interesting that people suffering from various phobias have normal intellectual abilities. They are able to recognize the problem and perceive their condition normally. But they simply do not have the strength to control their condition during contact with a phobia.

The study of human fears began more than 100 years ago. During this time, scientists were able to thoroughly study this psychological phenomenon, which made it possible to establish its main causes. As a rule, phobias arise in a person after events that traumatize the psyche, or with organic brain damage, for example, after meningitis. Treatment of the disease is prescribed based on the type of phobia, the reason for which the fear appeared, and also on the basis of the individual characteristics of the person.

In the modern world, people are constantly exposed to various stresses. This does not just go away and results in some kind of mental disorder. A striking example of this is people with hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. This disease can manifest itself in adulthood, although its cause will be hidden in the patient’s childhood.

Despite the unusual and even comical nature of the situation with the name phobia, those who suffer from such fear are not at all funny. This disease brings a lot of inconvenience in everyday life. It can manifest itself in the form of increased breathing, abnormal heart rhythm, shortness of breath, a feeling of nausea, as well as a panic attack when it is necessary to pronounce a word consisting of many letters.

Psychologists believe that the cause of the fear of long words is lack of self-confidence and various complexes that lead to the emergence of irrational fear. This may be a consequence of improper upbringing or other problems from childhood.

A phobia, in which a person is afraid to utter or simply read a long word, is often accompanied by stage fright. This is due to the fact that the fear of making a mistake in front of a large audience and pronouncing a word incorrectly is very high. Often, after such mistakes, a person is faced with ridicule from listeners, which in advance causes insurmountable fear.

Very often a person is afraid not of the word itself, but of the mistake that he can make during its pronunciation, which will raise doubts about his competence and reduce his social status.

How to treat?

Medications will not cure sesquipedaliophobia. It is necessary to find the root cause of fear. This will require the help of a hypnologist. We recommend contacting psychologist-hypnologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin, who has been working with various fears and phobias for more than 8 years.

If you consult a psychologist in a timely manner, you can get rid of this fear in a few sessions. Hypnotic methods are considered effective techniques for treating the fear of long words. They allow you to scan the client’s subconscious, find the cause of fear, and remove it from your head forever. It is worth noting that this phobia is often accompanied by other neuroses. These include fears:

foreign languages (xenoglossophobia);
misunderstanding of the essence of what was read or heard (acribophobia);
gaining knowledge (gnosiophobia).

Sources

https://ProPanika.ru/strahi/kak-nazyvaetsya-boyazn-dlinnyh-slov-ili-chto-takoe-gippopotomonstroseskvipedaliofobiya/
https://apatii.net/fobii/boyazn-dlinnyx-slov
https://ostrahe.ru/phobias/object/gippopotomonstroseskippedalofobiya-boyazn-dlinnyh-slov/
https://psihodoc.ru/fobii/boyazn-dlinnyh-slov.html
https://diclist.ru/slovar/fasmera/b/bojazn.html
https://eustress.ru/fobii/boyazn-dlinnyh-slov

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