Pantophobia: what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment

One day you find yourself walking and you begin to feel a great fear. Fear invades you and sensations appear in your body that you had not experienced before. There is something wrong and, however, it is difficult to understand the reason for this situation. It is normal to feel fear in unknown situations, but sometimes it can take over our entire lives and cause us inconveniences, that is when we speak of pantophobia, panphobia or omniphobia.

If you find yourself reading these lines, you may have had this type of sensation or know someone who has referred to these experiences. When problems appear, the important thing is to be able to act in time to solve them and obtain information that can help us with phobias in a better way. Do you want to know more about this? In this Psychology-Online article we will provide you with information about the Pantophobia: what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment.

Index

1. What is pantophobia
2. Symptoms of pantophobia
3. Causes of pantophobia
4. Treatment

The meaning of pantophobia is that of a irrational and exacerbated fear of any type of situation, person and/or object. Although this clinical picture is not defined within the parameters established by the DSM-V, it could be located within the generalized anxiety disorders since it is not a specific fear but a fear that encompasses the entire life of the person who suffers from it.

Beyond these qualities, pantophobia shares characteristics that can be seen in people who suffer from paranoia and social phobia. Due to these circumstances, there is no specific definition of the picture, although it is possible to make an approximation to it.

A very important aspect that must be considered are the physical and emotional manifestations characteristic of this problem. These are highly relevant as they can account for the diagnosis. The main symptoms that people with pantophobia have are the following:

• pathological anxiety
• palpitations
• excessive sweating
• Incrise of cardiac frecuency
• tremors
• Sickness
• vomiting
• Nervousness
• Negative thoughts referred to the person
• Low self-esteem
• self reproaches
• Shame
• Thoughts linked to other people being able to cause harm

It should be noted that the presence of any of these symptoms does not imply that we are facing pantophobia. In order to establish an adequate diagnosis, it is necessary that it be carried out by a mental health professional, since it will be in charge of considering the particularities of the patient based on their family history, pre-existing diseases, age, sex, among others.

In order to understand in greater depth the pictures of pantophobia, panphobia or omniphobia, depending on each case, it is important to pay attention to the causes. These account for the origins of the problem from certain specific events that are of great importance. Next, we will locate the main causes of pantophobia:

Environmental factors

On some occasions, it usually happens that the person with pantophobia has lived in the past situations that have generated a great fear that persists throughout life and appears in all scopes. In this sense, it is important to consider the value of the traumatic experiences in the formation of personality.

On the other hand, the imitation of behaviors It also plays a key role since there is often a member of the family who may suffer from this pathology. Given this, the person could have imitated this type of behavior and adopted them as patterns in life.

Genetic factors

Fear is also associated with various reactions that appear in the body. In this regard, it should be noted that there are connections between neurons that influence information processing coming from the environment.

Given this, it is possible that the person suffering from pantophobia has certain neuronal receptors in the cerebral cortex that trigger fear reactions in any situation. Here it is worth emphasizing genetic inheritance as a fundamental trait.

Beyond the problems caused by pathological anxiety in the lives of people with pantophobia, Fortunately, there are currently available treatments that have good efficacy in addressing this problem. problematic. Here we will place the most relevant:

psychological therapy

Therapy can help to cope with situations of stress, pathological anxiety and/or fear in a more tolerable way for the person. There are short-term therapies focused on solving problems in a limited period of sessions.

This kind of therapy uses different strategies so that people with pantophobia have tools to address their phobia. Here we will highlight the therapy cognitive behavioral as one of the most important.

On the other hand, long-term therapies aim to locate the origin in the past of the conflicts of a person so that it is possible to act in another way in the face of those situations that generate difficulties. The psychoanalysis It is the best known long therapy. Click on the next post if you want to learn what is psychoanalysis.

psychiatric medication

In certain cases where people with pantophobia, panphobia or omniphobia have considerable severity, the giving drugs that act on brain chemistry can help decrease the symptoms of pantophobia. However, it should be noted that it must be indicated by a health professional working in conjunction with a psychologist.

If you liked this article, we recommend you read How to overcome fears Y Types of rare phobias and their meaning.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Pantophobia: what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition). Arlington: Pan American Medical Publisher.

• Tizon, J. (2011). The power of fear. Where do we hide our everday fears?. Barcelona: Millennium Publisher.