Sometimes we take the of others as hobbies or peculiarities of that person, but in reality they are a disorder that must be treated. That is why we are against taking fears with mockery or skepticism and that is why we want to give visibility to a problem that is closely linked to anxiety. On this occasion, we talk about chirophobia or the fear of hands.
What is chirophobia?
There are phobias of specific objects, there are phobias of animals, there are phobias of situations, and there is even a phobia of sensations. Of course, among all these things that can cause a phobia, parts of the body could not be missing. And that is what chirophobia consists of, an irrational fear of hands. To their own and to others.
The person who suffers from chirophobia experiences sensations that can range from disgust to panic to rejection at the mere thought of a hand or the fact of touching another person’s hand. This phobia presents many problems, since the hands are part of our, we use them every day and there is no way to avoid them.
Where does the fear of hands come from?
The most common cause of chirophobia is found in an anxiety disorder. Anxiety can overwhelm you and upset your mind in such a way that a fear that is as difficult to understand as fear of hands can appear. The consequences derived from any phobia are multiplied in this case.
Because the behavior that generates a phobia is that of avoidance. If you suffer from arachnophobia, you avoid seeing or being close to an animal such as a spider; if you suffer from aerophobia, you avoid getting on a plane; If you suffer from claustrophobia, you avoid enclosed spaces, but what if you suffer from chirophobia? How do you avoid your own hands?
To some extent you can avoid coming into contact with the hands of others, even if it causes dire consequences in your social and work life. But there is no way to avoid own hand. You have to eat, you have to wash, and you have to dress…
Most frequent symptoms of chirophobia
We are facing a serious problem with unpredictable consequences. This phobic disorder manifests itself with the same symptoms, such as dizziness, palpitations, shortness of breath, sweating, a feeling of unreality, or headache. But symptoms beyond the physical are also observed.
Being afraid of the hands translates into low self-esteem, although we are not facing a typical complexity is more than a complex. It’s not that you don’t like your hands, it’s that you can’t stand the hands, your own and those of others. Isolation is also characteristic of this phobia, as well as catastrophic thoughts.
Treatment of an irrational fear
Can chirophobia be overcome? Of course. All phobias respond to appropriate treatment, but psychological help should be sought and not tried because of our own fears. Because before starting a specific therapy, you have to find out the origin of that fear.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the one that gives the best results and its benefits are observed in the long term. This therapy is based on understanding one’s own emotions and finding out why is triggered by the sight of a hand.
Once the fears are understood, the behavior can be changed, that is, to find the best technique so that that person stops associating the hands with emotions as powerful as anguish, for example. As you can see, it is not an experiment that can be done at home, because phobias are serious disorders.