Some phobias that have inevitable concepts as their object of panic do not cease to amaze us. This is the case of barophobia or fear of gravity, that force that keeps us with our feet on the ground and that due to its own immensity can cause excessive terror.
What is barophobia?
Barophobia is the fear of gravity, of the force of gravity. It is a phobic disorder with certain similarities to apeirophobia, that panic to the infinite that due to the very immensity of the concept is so difficult for us to understand. But what exactly is it that people with barophobia fear?
Fears can be varied. You can suffer from fear in the face of obsessive thoughts such as that the force of gravity fails and everything is suspended in the air or even thoughts as catastrophic as believing that the force of gravity is altered and everything is crushed by it can occur.
Symptom of fear of gravity
When we talk about more specific phobias, such as the phobia of spiders, we can understand that the symptoms occur in the presence of that animal, which is the stimulus. Barophobia also presents physical symptoms and they are the same as those of anxiety, but they are caused by one’s own thoughts.
Since the force of gravity is something that is constantly present in our lives, it is not something that can be avoided, which is the usual resource in most phobias. But watching a trip to space on television or even consulting a location where the planet appears from the air on the computer are enough stimuli to trigger panic.
Why does this phobia develop?
Like most, this fear of gravity can find its origin in a traumatic experience. It is a more common disorder in children due to the difficulty in understanding the concept of gravity and a fall from a tall building, for example, may have been recorded in the child’s emotional memory.
But it is evident that few traumatic experiences can occur related to the force of gravity, unless you have been an astronaut in another life. So the most likely cause of barophobia is an anxiety disorder that brings out irrational and excessive fears.
Barophobia treatment
Because it is such a rare phobia and because it has such an ill-defined stimulus such as the force of gravity, overcoming barophobia can be easier if you start to treat it with hypnosis, especially to find the origin of that panic to something that forms part of the environment and that also makes life possible.
But undoubtedly the most effective treatment to deal with barophobia is cognitive, which works on both thought and behavior. And, of course, in any therapy you cannot miss the use of relaxation techniques to reduce the anxiety component that all phobias entail.