There are many animals that you would not have at home as pets. There are animals that cause you a certain rejection, respect or fear and that you would prefer to have far away and, luckily, you do not find them every day. Zoophobia encompasses a set of phobias specific to animals and one of them is Selacophobia. What do you think of sharks? Are they as dangerous as we think? Discover more details about this surprising fear of sharks in our dictionary.
What is Selacophobia?
Selacophobia is the fear of sharks. One might think that the shark is not an animal that usually appears in our day to day, but the associations caused by the phobic disorder must be taken into account to understand the true dimension of Selacophobia.
As with other animal phobias, such as the popular arachnophobia or the widely accepted ophidiophobia, the shark is certainly a dangerous animal. Maybe not as much as legends and movies have led us to believe, but surely no one wants to meet a shark while it is calmly sailing.
So a certain fear of sharks is perfectly normal and falls within that adaptive function of fear, that of protecting ourselves, that of fleeing or fighting, depending on the case. However, when fear leads you to avoid the stimulus, in this case sharks, and when fear becomes irrational and excessive, it is when we.
Consequences of fear of sharks
We could also think that a shark is not dog that the neighbor can take for a walk and you will not meet him. Have you ever seen a shark? Maybe not. And that does not prevent you from suffering from this phobia. It is tempting not to give importance to a phobia of this type when it comes to animals with which we do not live in our daily lives, but it is that the problem is not the animal itself, but all its associations.
Avoiding sharks is simple and in principle it does not interfere with your daily life. You just have to avoid going into aquariums or museums of the sea and, after all, these animals are not found in all seas. The problem with phobic disorders is that they begin by focusing on a particular stimulus, the shark. At first the fear is only towards sharks, but later the stimulus becomes more general.
Where do sharks live? At be. Not in all seas. It is not likely that you will spend a day at the beach on the shores of the Mediterranean and come across this animal. But when the mechanism of the phobia is put into action, the field of action of the fear is widened. Hence, if you suffer from Selacophobia, you are not only afraid of sharks, but also.
Here you already begin to condition your life, right? Because you have to avoid going to the beach with your family. Because you are terrified that this animal will appear and harm you, your friends or your loved ones. Now the sea is also dangerous for you. And wait because there is still more.
Because you may be in a situation where a row of teeth reminds you of a shark’s mouth, you see a surfer in the distance and associate the board with the shark’s fin, or something moves quickly between the waves and your panic is activated. If Selacophobia escalates to the highest degree, you may also suffer from phobia.
Symptoms of Selacophobia
And how do you know if you are suffering from Selacophobia? Phobias are evidenced by a series of physical and psychological symptoms in response to the stimulus that is considered dangerous. The fear reaction or the anxiety reaction, because those are the basic aspects of a phobic disorder.
You don’t have to be in front of a shark to notice the symptoms of Selacophobia; it’s enough to see this animal in pictures or on television to trigger a whole series of responses from your body to fear. Among the most obvious symptoms are tachycardia, excessive sweating, and shortness of breath, dizziness and numbness in the extremities, a sequence that can easily lead to an anxiety attack or even.
Psychological symptoms are also to be taken into account, because catastrophic thoughts, obsessive and irrational thoughts appear in phobias as well. These thoughts together with the physical symptoms form a cocktail that can easily complicate your life. It is time to become aware of the importance of mental health because a phobia can be the cause or consequence of many other psychological disorders.
Causes of Selacophobia: why are you afraid of sharks
But before looking for a treatment, it may be worth understanding the causes of this irrational fear of sharks. The first thing that comes to mind is cultural influence. Sharks are considered very dangerous animals, although in reality they are not so much, because of the movies and literature. Logically, if you enjoy good mental health, cultural influence is not enough for the phobia to develop, but what if you have a previous anxiety disorder?
Anxiety problems cause phobias to appear in your life and they can be most surprising. Have you never felt that irrational fear of anything before? List phobic disorder as one of the many consequences of anxiety. The genetic or adaptive factoris not ruled out as the cause of this phobia since, although sharks are not as dangerous as the movies show us, it is true that they attack by surprise, that they are not seen coming, with the uncertainty factor that It influences so much when you have anxiety.
Selacophobia can also appear from conditioning, from having lived a traumatic experience related to sharks. It can be a direct or indirect experience. Having heard in childhood a story of someone close to you who was attacked by a shark, for example, could cause you such an intense emotional charge that you continue in your life in the form of a phobic disorder.
Selacophobia treatment
Like all phobias, the fear of sharks can be overcome. But it is necessary to put yourself in the hands of a psychology professional, it is not a question of personal development or of proving how strong you are by overcoming your fears by yourself. Phobias are a disorder and as such must be treated.
The most widely used therapy in the treatment of phobias is Cognitive. What does it consist of? Well, precisely in modifying those irrational thoughts that lead you to suffer the symptoms of the phobia. Because that emotion that you feel, fear or panic in the face of sharks, is born from what you are thinking, that the shark is a great danger in your life.
Once you manage to modify your thinking and have a more realistic vision of the relative danger that sharks pose, you begin to work with behaviors. The behavior of a phobia is avoidance, but how do you avoid avoiding or avoiding situations that cause you so much fear? With progressive exposure therapy. Yes, you will have to face those situations that cause you so much fear, hence the need to do it with the help of a professional.
All phobias can be overcome with proper treatment, so don’t risk it because what is really in danger is not your life from a shark attack, but your mental health.