The meaning of the word "hydrophobia"

Many of us wait until summer to go to the ponds and enjoy cool water on a hot day.
Many people dream of going on a cruise, swimming in the sea or scuba diving. But there are people for whom ordinary bathing in the bathroom is extremely stressful. They have a terrible fear of water because they are under the influence of an unusual but common phobia called hydrophobia - fear of water. Even if the idea of ​​mice causes significant discomfort and significant disturbance in a person, no real problems and real disturbances are observed, since the person does not encounter mice in their environment. Proximity to the initiator of the phobic stimulus and the degree of desire to escape from the phobic stimulus should also be taken into account.

Finally, a basic note is that the term phobia is an all-encompassing term and that phobias differentiate between phobias and phobias. In specific phobias we find, for example, arachnophobia or acrophobia. Social phobias relate to social situations such as public speaking and human resources.

What kind of phobia is this?

Hydrophobia (aquaphobia
, ablutophobia ) – fear of swimming, fear of water and a negative attitude towards water procedures.
This phobia causes great inconvenience to people, because it is very difficult to have a full life while experiencing fear of water. Aquaphobia develops equally in both children and adults.

Psychologists and psychiatrists assign three categories to most phobias; According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, these phobias are called subgroups of anxiety disorder. Social phobia: Fear of other people or social situations, such as fear or stage depression in the face of being watched by others, such as when eating socially. Overcoming social phobia is often very difficult without the help of therapy or self-help groups. Social phobia can be further divided into.

General social phobia; specific social phobia, in which the alarm is triggered only in specific situations. Symptoms may also include psychosomatic phenomena of physical problems. This goes far beyond mere preference: when the phobia is triggered, it is physically impossible for the person to empty their bladder. Specific phobias: fear of a single specific panic trigger such as spiders, snakes, dogs, water, heights, flies, fear of illness for a specific disease, etc. Many people experience these fears, however, to a lesser extent than human specific phobia.

This phobia itself dates back to ancient times. Once upon a time, the element of water was completely beyond human control. Ships were wrecked, huts were demolished by downpours, floods destroyed arable land. Fear of water was a normal defensive reaction. But in our time, the danger from this element has been minimized, so hydrophobia is not a blessing, but a huge inconvenience that an aquaphobe needs to fight.

A patient suffering from a phobia avoids what he fears. Cognitive behavioral therapy also produces good results. This allows the patient to approach dysfunctional thoughts or beliefs by paying attention to their own feelings so that the patient recognizes the fear as irrational. Cognitive behavioral therapy can be performed as group therapy. Gradual desensitization and cognitive behavioral therapy are often successful if the patient is willing to withstand a certain amount of discomfort.

In clinical trials, no phobic reactions were found in 90% of patients after successful treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing was found to be effective in treating some phobias in a clinical study conducted by a specialist.

Types of hydrophobia

Water surrounds us everywhere, it is in every house, underground, in the sky and even in the air. Therefore, it is not surprising that fear of water has many variations. Every aquaphobe fears water in his own way. One person is scared only by the endless ocean, while another is thrown into a panic by the need to wash his face in the morning. As soon as hydrophobia is not called in each individual case - thalassophobia, ablutophobia, chionophobia or bathophobia - all this is an obsessive irrational uncontrollable fear of water. What is each type of water phobia?

However, there is still a lack of research and scientific evidence to support the status of an effective treatment. Antidepressants may be helpful in some cases of phobia. Benzodiazepines can be used for the acute treatment of severe symptoms, but the benefit-risk balance weighs against their long-term use in phobic disorders.

There are also new pharmacological approaches; Glucocorticoids have been shown to influence psychotherapeutic processes of remodeling and memory and may support psychotherapy based on the extinction of negative memories. Emotional Freedom Technique, a form of psychotherapeutic alternative medicine treatment, should also be effective, but is classified as pseudoscience by school medicine.

• Bathophobia is characterized by fear of any deep water bodies.
• Thalassophobia manifests itself exclusively as a fear of the sea. If a person is terrified of swimming in sea water, sailing in the sea on any vessels, and sometimes cannot bring himself to simply approach the seashore, then Thallasophobia is obvious.
• Ablutophobia is one of the most common water fears in children. The fear of water in this case manifests itself as the fear of washing, bathing, bathing, and even brushing your teeth. Ablutophobia, perhaps, gives aquaphobe the greatest problems among all variants of the fear of water. After all, it is difficult to imagine a person’s normal life without daily water exercises.
• Chionophobia is a specific variant of the disease, such as the fear of snow.

It happens that the fear of water is not so obvious, because it is hidden behind other phobias. For example, fear of rain may not be a sign of brontophobia (fear of thunderstorms), but a manifestation of panicky reluctance to come into contact with water.

Another method that psychologists and psychiatrists use to treat patients with extreme phobias is confrontation over a longer period of time. This confrontation over a longer period of time is used in psychotherapy, where the patient suffering from a phobia is exposed to their fear for an extended period of time. This method is used only when the patient has overcome the reaction to avoid or run away from the phobic object or situation that causes the phobia.

Individuals who experience only minor distress in their phobia usually do not need a longer confrontation with the subject of their fear. The various treatments mentioned are not mutually exclusive. It is common for therapists to combine multiple forms of therapy.

Reasons for fear of water

Like any mental disorder, phobia of fear of water is based on some experienced emotional and psychological situation. Experts identify several main causes of the disease:

• Doctors say the most common cause is stress related to water resources: a shipwreck, the risk of drowning.
• Too emotional people, after watching films describing severe natural disasters such as tsunamis and floods, already perceive large expanses of water as a threat to life.
• Being present when a drowned person is discovered leaves an indelible impression for life. As a result, water is associated with death.
• Fear of going into the river for fear that a monster will appear from the depths and drag you away with it.

Whatever the reasons for aquaphobia, a person is terrified of everything related to water. Determining the presence of the disease is very simple - a hydrophobe is afraid to swim and even be at the edge of the water. The patient's pulse quickens, sweating increases, nausea and dizziness are possible.

Where does this fear come from?

Fear of water most often occurs against the background of an accident.

For example, thalassophobia and bathophobia most often develop after a person nearly drowns, swims to deep water, gets caught in a storm, or survives a shipwreck. Hydrophobia may occur if there was an episode when a child or adult almost choked while eating liquid food. Chionophobia, the fear of thunderstorms and rain, can develop as a result of a collision with the consequences of the elements, for example, a snow drift or a flood. Each of these episodes can leave a deep imprint on the human psyche, this is especially true for children. It is in childhood that most cases of hydrophobia are recorded.

Phobias are a common form of anxiety disorder. An American study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health found that 8.7% - 18.1% of Americans suffer from phobias. According to age and gender, the study found that phobias are the most common mental illness in women of all age groups and the second most common in men over 25 years of age.

Other meanings of the word phobia

The word phobia can also refer to phenomena other than fear. Thus, the term "hydrophobia" means "fear of water", but it can also refer to a disease-related inability to drink or a chemical tendency of a substance not to bond with water.

Many people with active imaginations may begin to experience a fear of depth and a fear of swimming in open water after watching disaster films.

Separately, we can highlight cases where hydrophobia in children is associated with careless handling by parents when they teach the child to swim, or with swimming in cold water. The child is also more sensitive to thunderstorm events. Having experienced strong fear after a thunderstorm, an impressionable child may begin to be afraid of water due to the fact that the fear reaction fixed in the brain from the sound of raindrops during a severe thunderstorm can be projected onto any sounds of water. A negative episode is deeply imprinted in the memory of even the smallest child. This is due to the fact that cognitive activity plays a huge role at an early age. The child’s consciousness is open to new impressions and events. Therefore, any situation, even a negative one, is perceived by children as an experience that creeps into the subconscious for a long time.

Perhaps there is someone in your community who has one or the other phobia. A phobia is a painful fear of something. First, the question is whether it is necessary to deal with it at all. Suppose someone has a spider phobia, what should it be? At our latitude, spiders are not so common. And then when your colleagues or your colleague suddenly get scared because there is a spider there, it is no longer tragic. Most phobias have nothing to do with everyday life; you don't have to do anything.

Of course, there are also phobias that are more relevant. So there is agoraphobia, the fear of public places where there are other people. There are claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces, and various other types of phobias that can be very important in everyday life. Some advice would be: let the person or encourage him to go to psychotherapeutic treatment. Phobias can now be treated well. There is a high chance of success in advising someone to go to a psychotherapy treatment that specializes in phobias.

Sense organs as a cause

Often what scares us is not the water itself, but our reaction to the water. Swimming is accompanied by water getting into your eyes, nose, and ears. The contact of water with mucous membranes is quite unpleasant. It can seriously frighten a child.

The solution will be gradual addiction, similar to the previous example:

1. Eyes
   . You can first wipe your face with a damp towel. Then try putting a light salt solution into your eyes. Only by gradually and methodically accustoming your eyes to water will you stop feeling discomfort and fear. Active water games are good for children, when in the excitement of the game the child is easily distracted from unpleasant sensations.
2. Ears
   . As for other senses, water is not dangerous for hearing; we are reliably protected by the auricle and eardrum. But sometimes water plugs can form due to wax accumulated in the ears. In these cases, you need to very carefully clean your ear with a cotton swab.
3. Nose
   . A common fear of swallowing water is associated with the fear of choking. Here it is important to learn to breathe correctly and keep your head on the water.

Contact with the senses often causes a fear of water, but this can also be resolved with their help – through gradual habituation.

How to determine hydrophobia?

I would like to note that the fear of water is not always psychogenic in nature. Sometimes hydrophobia is one of the symptoms of such terrible diseases as rabies and tetanus, so they need to be excluded when diagnosing a phobia. A disease such as rabies was previously called hydrophobia, but rabies is of a viral nature, unlike a phobic disorder. Hydrophobia appears in the second stage of rabies, when death is almost inevitable. If, along with the fear of water, you have even a hint of symptoms of rabies such as delirium, hallucinations, photophobia and aggression, and all this was preceded by an animal bite, you should immediately run to the hospital. Rabies is a dangerous and deadly disease that should not be trifled with.

Phobias as mental disorders

Otherwise, yoga and meditation can also help.
People who regularly practice yoga and meditation also learn to grow beyond their fears and not be dominated by their phobias. Shukadeva Bretz in a short lecture. Phobias are mental disorders that are most easily overcome. If you are afraid of something, of something specific, this fear is enormous. And it's easy to overcome. Many psychotherapists know methods for this. If you are afraid of snakes, spiders, fear of flying, high heights, fear of enclosed spaces. These are all different phobias, all of which are easily treated and can be overcome. The easiest way is to consult a psychotherapist and ask him if he specializes in treating phobias. If he answers you, no, but we can try and then choose another one.

The symptoms of aquaphobia, like many other disorders, are conventionally divided into psychological and vegetative.

Mental symptoms:

• dislike of water contact with skin;
• fear of depth, open waters;
• fear of swimming, bathing, taking baths;
• avoiding leaving the house if there is a possibility of a thunderstorm with snow or rain;
• in rare cases, anxiety before ingesting liquids.

Symptoms of a physical nature (manifest upon possible contact of an aquaphobe with moisture, when thinking about swimming, depth):

Just like doctors, there are also specializations for psychotherapists. You also don't go to a pulmonary doctor if you have an ankle problem. And you don't even go to the doctor when you have stomach problems. Unfortunately, there is no phobia specialist or psychotherapist in psychotherapy, but you can ask, and typical therapists are open to it.

If you have learned abdominal breathing and deep relaxation, for example through yogakura, you can learn to practice abdominal breathing and deep relaxation as you step by step with the object of your anxiety. So let's say you are afraid of spiders, then learn deep relaxation and abdominal breathing, and then take a rubber spider. Hold the rubber spider in your hand and inhale and exit several times. Smile and learn to overcome your fear of this rubber spider. This way you can hold the spider in your hand for 25 minutes.

• nausea;
• dizziness;
• headache;
• increased blood pressure;
• profuse sweating.

If there is no treatment for a phobia for a long time, and the aquaphobe still gets into the water, for example, goes far into the sea, he may begin to have panic attacks, convulsions and other dangerous somatic symptoms. At such moments, consciousness turns off, and the ability to control one’s body and thoughts is lost. It is severe aquaphobia that poses a huge danger to a person’s life, so even in the earliest stages it is necessary to try to overcome it.

You can also do things in different ways - breathe and then the fear of the spider will end. Second step: Hold the dead spider in your hand. And please don't kill spiders. But with some searching you will see a dead spider somewhere. You might have to ask your wife or whoever you're not so careful about hanging around. You will find a dead spider. And then expand into deep abdominal breathing and then inhale.

The next step would be to take a live spider in your hand, perhaps do it in the glass first, and then put the glass in your hand, and then run the spider through your hand. So you can do this with everything. Abdominal breathing, relaxation and step by step stimulation. If you do this, you will quickly overcome your phobia. You must also overcome the fear of the phobia. Confrontational therapy is the easiest way to overcome phobias. There are many variations of confrontational therapy.

How to overcome a phobia in adults

Fear of water is common not only to children, but also to many adults. People living on the coasts are more susceptible to it, as they come into contact with water more often and see it in a variety of forms and moods.

Adult phobias are a consequence of unresolved childhood fears or the result of psychological trauma in adulthood.

If an adult has lived most of his adult life with this problem, it will not go away on its own, as it often happens in children. Also, adults are most often afraid of drowning, unlike children who are not yet aware of the “life-death” dyad and are afraid of water as such.

The path to overcome is not complicated, but it requires patience and consists of a sequence of simple steps:

1. Try to catch all your irrational judgments
   that are related to water. For example, “I will definitely drown (like my grandfather)”, “there is a huge danger in the water”, “I will not be able to control the situation if I go into the water.” Confidence in the correctness of these conclusions is not supported by real facts, so they are a logical error. Learn to recognize these thoughts and be aware of their irrational nature.
2. On a piece of paper, rank your fear from 1 to 10
   , where 10 is the most frightening situation related to water (for example: “swimming in the open sea”), and 1 is what scares you the least, but still causes some discomfort (for example, “look at the image of a sea storm”).
3. Take a deep breath and exhale
   , normalize your breathing and pulse, relax. After this, put yourself in situation number 1 (the least frightening one) and try, while experiencing it, to normalize your breathing. It is best if a person you trust is nearby and shows the amplitude of your normal breathing with smooth hand movements. Try to breathe along with these movements. When you manage to control yourself and feel calm and relaxed in the first situation, move on to the second, then to the third. This is enough for the first time. The next day, plunge yourself into situation number 3 and live it until you can relax and normalize your pulse and breathing. Gradually move forward. Move to the next level only after you feel that you can calmly control yourself at the previous one.
4. For successfully completing each exercise, reward yourself
   with something pleasant. And don't forget about children's pranks. Why not celebrate the successful completion of a long journey with a trip to the water park?

How to get rid of fear?

Fear of water interferes with a full life for many reasons. An aquaphobe is deprived of basic joys - many do not know how to swim, so they avoid active recreation in water parks, swimming pools, near lakes and rivers. Thalassophobia deprives adults of the pleasure of seaside resorts and cruises, and chionophobia makes skiing and sledding taboo. A child who is unable to overcome his fear of water is deprived of the joy of water games with peers. Sometimes aquaphobes endure even greater difficulties: ablutophobia makes taking a bath a feat, a thunderstorm with rain causes extreme stress, and some experience anxiety and restlessness before drinking a glass of water.

Fear of water in children

There you will find a search box and in the search box you can type "Phobie" or "Angsta" or "Angst Broadcast" and you will find all the information, with many more tips, lectures, websites, exercises.
You will also find instructions for abdominal breathing, instructions for transfusing a lamp, instructions for overcoming panic disorders, and much more. A phobia is an unreasonable fear of objects or situations. It should be distinguished from anxiety, which has its origin for a specific reason. For example, a poisonous snake in the jungle triggers a hardening reflex or an uncontrollable fire in the reverse reflex. Anxiety serves human survival. A phobia, on the other hand, is triggered randomly in certain situations that are not potentially threatening: in empty spaces, in elevators, in front of harmless spiders. For this reason, phobias need to be treated by a specialist as quickly as possible; especially when the phobia limits daily life, in extreme cases those affected can no longer leave their home.

When hydrophobia becomes an obstacle to normal life, you need to consult a psychiatrist or psychotherapist who will help you overcome the phobia. During the conversation, the doctor will be able to establish the cause, find the event that became the impetus for fear. It will help you get rid of symptoms and also learn to perceive water in a new way. Ablutophobia, thalassophobia and any other fear of hydrophobia respond well to psychotherapy and treatment with hypnosis. In practice, the method of gradual contact with the object of fear is used. As the aquaphobe’s reaction to water begins to change, he will be given the opportunity to touch it and feel the moisture on himself. At the same time, there must be a peaceful environment around; the aquaphobe can be accompanied by a loved one.

The prospects for success are good, the disease is well studied, there are different methods, as well. psychologist or psychiatrist. Treatment is usually provided by the health insurance company. Yoga and relaxation, especially psychological yoga therapy, as a branch of yoga, are also useful for any anxiety disorder.

Confrontational therapy, which many fear, should not always be used. It is also possible to replace faulty programs in the brain with others. Phobias are likely caused by brain misalignment. Fear is an emotion that we can recognize through a series of physiological and psychological changes. These changes are associated with the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system.

The method of art therapy is gaining popularity. It is a complement to psychotherapy. At such sessions, a person is asked to portray a phobia, thus allowing him to feel the insignificance of his fear. The problem visualization method works on approximately the same principle: the aquaphobe imagines the sea or lake, how he touches the surface, enters and begins to swim in the water. Such therapy is considered successful if pictures of water in the imagination begin to evoke only positive emotions.

With a mild form of the disease, you can try to overcome hydrophobia on your own.

Choose a beautiful place to swim and that causes the least discomfort. This could be your own bathroom, or maybe a small pond in a picturesque forest. It is necessary to enlist the support of a friend who will be nearby during the entire experiment, encourage and reassure, and in case of unforeseen situations will be able to come to the rescue. In order to overcome a phobia, sometimes it is enough for a child to learn to swim in a safe environment in the presence of one of the parents. Positive experiences with water may also allow him to overcome his fear of rain and no longer be afraid of thunderstorms. Learning to swim is also useful for an adult aquaphobe; it increases the feeling of self-confidence and contact with an object of fear no longer causes severe panic.

In any case, whatever the method of getting rid of the fear of moisture, it should always take place in a calm atmosphere and with positive emotions.

All the most necessary benefits of civilization are associated with water. Water has a relaxing effect, it calms and gives peace. No picturesque place is complete without a small pond or endless sea. Therefore, it is worth learning to deal with unreasonable fears. Aquaphobia is a lock, getting rid of which opens up a full life with all its charms and possibilities.

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A pathological fear of water is called hydrophobia. A phobia is of a psychological nature; a person is afraid of drowning, choking, and is frightened by the inability to breathe. Hydrophobia can be a sign of a disease such as rabies. In this form, the patient may experience a panic attack from any type of liquid, for example, from raindrops on the skin. With rabies, painful convulsions occur when trying to swallow, so it is important to distinguish between a fear of water based on psychological fear and a serious illness.

A phobia often occurs after a negative event that made a strong impression and was deposited in the mind. Panic fear may appear after a child or adult witnesses an accident on the water. For example, drowning, a sinking ship, watching news about tragic events.

Usually, impressionable and anxious people who have a rich imagination and draw scary pictures in their heads are susceptible to hydrophobia. Often fear occurs in children after careless bathing. Water stress can linger for a long time.

This is interesting: famous Hollywood actors Jackie Chan and Russell Crowe have a fear of water.

Symptoms of obsessive fear of water

How can you define hydrophobia? Many signs coincide when unreasonable fears appear. In case of possible contact with water, a person experiences:

• increased sweating;
• increased muscle tone;
• nausea;

A person cannot cope with panic; it is impossible to convince him that the water is safe. If he is forced into water, then symptoms of a panic attack begin. If a child is afraid, then you should not be violent while bathing. Fear becomes entrenched, and it will be more difficult to get rid of it. In severe cases, the person with the phobia develops seizures.

The situation is not always so critical; the phobia can manifest itself in a weak form. In this case, the signs are expressed in anxiety and severe anxiety at the sight of water and possible swimming.

What should I call it?

You need to know the enemy not only by sight, but also by name. In various literature you can find the terms: “fear of water”, “hydrophobia”, “hydrophobia”, “aquaphobia”. All these terms have common roots.

The ancient Greeks used the words “hydro” and “phobos” to mean “water” and “fear.” Aquaphobia is a compilation of the Latin “aqua” - “water” and the Greek root already known to us. The first two terms are translation options for old analogues.

Sometimes the term “aquaphobia” is associated with generalized hydrophobia, and “hydrophobia” with the manifestation of rabies. But in the scientific literature such differentiation is not established, therefore these terms are considered as synonyms and differ only in the author’s context.

There are a number of intricate words that denote all shades of fear of water:

• ablutophobia – fear of any contact with water;
• bathophobia – fear of deep water;
• patamophobia – fear of stormy streams;
• limnophobia – fear of big water;
• thalassophobia – avoidance of the seas (both swimming and traveling);
• anthlophobia - fear of flooding;
• Omnophobia – obsessive fear of getting caught in the rain;
• chionophobia – fear of snow.

Therefore, the fear of the water element can have a very different content, but is invariably associated with the discomfort that it brings into a person’s life and creates a lot of inconvenience.

How to deal with your fear of water

You can get rid of the obsessive fear of water on your own or with the help of a psychotherapist. To prevent a phobia from interfering with life, you need a great desire and a lot of work on yourself. It is advisable to have a partner nearby, a friend who will support you at all stages. To begin with, you need to use small volumes of water, for example, start immersing yourself in a bathtub, then in a pool, then try your hand at a small pond, river, sea, and so on. It is important to monitor your breathing and emotions. What is scary, what causes panic?