We tend to think that phobias are generated by specific and well-defined stimuli such as spiders, enclosed spaces, crowds, or blood. However, there are also phobias in which the abstract and subjectivity come into play and for this reason they are more difficult to detect. Discover in our dictionary of phobias what is cacophobia or the fear of the ugly.
What is cacophobia?
Cacophobia is the fear of the ugly, fear of ugly people or ugly objects. The complication that exists to detect this phobia is evident, because how do you decide if a person or an object is ugly? Ugliness is somewhat subjective and responds to the criteria of each person, which makes the
No two people with cacophobia react with anxiety to the same stimuli. What is ugly for one person may not be for another. And there is no specific list of ugliness that causes the phobia either. Each person is different and in this case, each person with cacophobia understands ugliness in a different way.
Am I afraid of ugliness?
In any case, when a person detects something ugly, be it a person or an object, they experience the same symptoms of anxiety. Palpitations, choking sensation, tingling, dizziness, shortness of breath, pupil dilation, feeling or excessive sweating, among others.
The fear they feel before an ugly person or an ugly object is irrational, excessive, intense and uncontrollable. Fatalistic thoughts come into action because they fear that the ugly could do them some harm. And those obsessive thoughts feed back into the physical symptoms.
Although it may seem like a surreal situation to us, we can imagine that it is a feeling close to coulrophobia or fear of clowns, which also occurs due to appearance.
Causes of phobias
Most phobias find their development in an anxiety disorder that causes the person’s mind to be filled with fear and see more dangers around them. Anxiety puts you on guard against danger and when levels are excessive, danger can be found in any stimulus.
In the case of cacophobia, one can also think of educational or cultural causes. And the appearance of a phobia due to conditioning after having lived through a traumatic experience is never ruled out. Imagine Halloween night that was negatively etched in the mind of a child.
Treatment of fear of the ugly
It is important to treat this phobia because it is completely impossible to avoid the stimulus that produces it. How do you avoid the ugly? Then there is the unpredictable factor. When you are afraid of the plane, it is relatively easy to avoid getting on one. When you’re afraid of crowds, it’s easy to avoid exposing yourself to a situation with a lot of people, but how do you know when and where you’re going to meet a person you consider ugly or a hideous object?
The best option to overcome cacophobia is cognitive. With this therapy it is possible to transform the thoughts that the stimulus generates, in this case the ugly, and thus be able to modify the behavior. The therapy obtains better results if it is accompanied by relaxation techniques to reduce the effects of anxiety.