What is coulrophobia, what the cause and what symptoms it has

Have you ever heard about the Coulrophobia? It's about the phobia to clowns, And it is a phobia that, although it seems unusual, occurs quite frequently. Today we tell you everything you should know about it.

Content

• What exactly is coulrophobia?
• What symptoms do you have?
• What is your cause?
• How can you treat?

What exactly is coulrophobia?

Generally, clowns produce positive sensations and emotions. After all, they are in the circuses to have fun and make us laugh, not to be afraid and wake up other negative sensations.

However, for some people, clowns are the origin of a myriad of unpleasant and negative sensations, getting to have authentic terror. This phenomenon is known as phobia of clowns (or, more technically, coulrophobia).

In general, this is a phobia that is usually related to different emotional causes in the subconscious From the person who suffers from it, so there is no simple solution for this problem.

What is known about coulrophobia is that it appears when the person sees a clown, talks about them or simply, imagines them. As soon as some of this happens, The person begins to show the symptoms of any phobia, of which we speak next.

What symptoms do you have?

The symptoms of coulrophobia are the same as in any other type of phobia: The feeling of very intense fear, tremors, anxiety, tachycardia and irregular beat, respiratory complications, sweating ..

On many occasions, people surrounding the person suffering from the Coulrophobia perceive these symptoms as something funny or ridiculous, because, after all .. Who can be afraid of clowns?

However, subjectively, the person suffering from phobia to clowns has authentic dread, which can trigger very severe anxiety attacks.

We must also point out the fact that, when talking about any phobia, we can talk about "two types" of phobia. The first is what is constantly suffered, and The second is the phobia once it is activated.

That is, a person with coulrophobia is always coulrophobic, but it does not always have the symptoms. These appear when you think or see clowns. In this sense, we can talk about a "weak" coulrophobia (to refer to suffering in general) and a "strong" coulrophobia (to refer to the symptoms that appear when activated).

What is your cause?

The cause of coulrophobia, like that of any other phobia, can be the most varied. There may not even be a single, both personally and at the whole of the people who suffer from this phobia.

However, in general, people who have coulrophobia refer to having experienced some personal experience with negative connotations in which the clown figure appeared.

This, as you can suppose, is common to any other type of phobia. In general, these always appear for that reason: Some traumatic experience related to the element that awakens the phobia.

However, in the case of the phobia to the clowns, there are many experts who consider that the cause is actually in the imaginary that has been built around the clown.

And, in the big media, the clown figure is used very frequently in horror movies. In origin, this resource was very powerful, because it generated a cognitive dissonance in the viewer, which I saw an element traditionally associated with laughter and positivity, turned into a psychopath.

Another consensus among the specialists refers to the makeup used by clowns can make children look very impacted, being able to cause them fear, in the same way that there are children who are afraid of sitting in Santa's lap CLAUS.

How can you treat?

The techniques to treat coulrophobia are the same as those used for all other phobias. That is: psychological habituation therapy, which consists of progressively contacting the phobia so that it disappears.

For example, a person who is afraid when he sees clowns, but he doesn't have it when he thinks of them, he can start therapy thinking about them for a longer time. Then seeing drawings from them. Then watching videos. Then seeing someone disguised as a clown.

In this way, gradually, that person is exposed to the element that awakens the phobia little by little, and sees that there is nothing to fear. The consequence of this is the complete habituation and, therefore, The possibility of being in contact with the clown figure without her waking up the symptomatic picture described above.

As you can see, the Coulrophobia either phobia to clowns It is more frequent than it could be thought of at first. We hope that this article has helped you learn more from it and, in the event that you know someone to suffer from it, you can guide you about how to overcome it.

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