BOGIFOBIA (fear of the supernatural): what is it, causes, symptoms and treatment

Surely when you were little they told you stories about the bogeyman or you have an acquaintance, friend or family member to whom they explained them. Perhaps you know someone who is afraid of monsters or you yourself feel or felt an irrational fear of these beings when you were little. This fear is called bogiphobia.

In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about what is bogyphobia, its causes, symptoms and what is its treatment. If you are interested in knowing in more detail what this fear of supernatural and imaginary beings consists of, keep reading!

Index

1. What is bogiphobia
2. Causes of bogiphobia
3. Symptoms of bogiphobia
4. bogiphobia treatment

To understand what bogiphobia is, we must first go back to when we were boys and girls and they explained to us stories about the boogeyman, or the fear that we had that there was some monster under the bed or inside from the closet.

In English-speaking countries, the equivalent of the bogeyman (or the typical "who comes from the bogeyman") is the Bogeyman, from which the term bogyphobia comes. Thus, we can say that bogiphobia is the irrational fear of the boogeyman, or as other authors define it, the

Some boys and girls develop it due to the general habit of frightening them by telling them that some strange being will appear and take them away in case of not behaving well, for not wanting to go to bed or leaving food on the plate. Although this threat is increasingly in disuse, we can still find people who use it and, therefore, enhance the appearance of bogyphobia.

Therefore, this phobia is consolidated by poor learning, where the boy or girl, faced with stimuli from supernatural and imaginary beings, immediately suffers from intense anxiety.

Example of a complex case of bogyphobia

Imagine a child whose parents always threaten him that if he doesn't tidy up his room, the boogeyman will come. This threat generates anxiety, palpitations and hyperventilation in the minor, so he fulfills his task to the point of developing bogyphobia.

In this case, the child keeps the room in excessive order in order to avoid the anxiety generated by be told that the bogeyman may come, to such an extent that there can never be anything that is not in his site. He never lets anyone leave anything out of his place, which leads him to develop a obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) with order, with the consequences that it entails in the social and academic sphere.

This OCD is generalized and is no longer just in his room, but affects all areas of the child's life. When this child arrives for consultation, it is most likely that he does not remember where this compulsion for order comes from and the treatment is much more complex.

How do I know if I have bogyphobia? Next, we show you the main symptoms of bogiphobia:

• negative references the "bogeyman" or supernatural and imaginary beings.
• excessive avoidance and escape of these stimuli.
• Hyperventilation and palpitations.
• intense anxiety in the face of erroneous estimates of threat, that is, in the face of the meanings attributed to the stimulus and the evoked response of fear. discover different natural anxiolytics to calm anxiety.
• appearance of others derived disorders of this phobia.

If you think that you could suffer from bogiphobia and you notice that this is interfering with your daily life and causing you discomfort, It is important that you go to a psychologist who can do the relevant tests and carry out the treatment that best suits your case.

Having said that, the key to curing bogiphobia is the repeated exposure to the stimulus specifically feared, such as the thought of the possibility of the appearance of the boogeyman, and the generation of a new learning in which the feared stimulus becomes innocuous.

Cognitive behavioral therapies

Other techniques that work are those of the cognitive behavioral current psychology: narrative therapy and eye movement processing and desensitization (EMDR).

As always, the choice of the most appropriate treatment will depend on many factors, personal, social, and environmental, but, whatever the type of treatment chosen, to cure bogiphobia it will be necessary:

• That the therapist has knowledge of the conceptual model that he applies.
• A good therapeutic relationship has been established.
• That a consistent logic of treatment be transmitted.
• That the different exposure modalities be implemented effectively.

exposure therapy

According to Wolpe, systematic desensitization works by counterconditioning, that is, by associate or generate an opposite response, such as relaxation, to which it would be initially generated, such as fear, and anxiety.

This is the most used by specialists and is based on Maurer's bifactorial theory and the habituation and extinction models. Its effectiveness in curing bogiphobia lies in preventing avoidance from becoming a sign of safety. This therapy can be carried out in several ways:

• Live (gradual or inversive): exposing himself directly to the situation that generates the irrational fear with the boogeyman
• symbolic: through associated visual or auditory stimuli or through virtual reality.
• In a group: thus increasing social support and motivation and adherence to therapy.
• interoceptive: provoking the bodily sensations typical of the moment the fear appears, such as hyperventilation.

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 Bogyphobia (fear of the supernatural): what it is, causes, symptoms and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

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