2006-10-01 20:30:56 · 6 answers · asked by buttapecangoddess2006 1 in Travel ➔ United States ➔ Los Angeles
I have a place in my heart for the words related to phobias, and I searched all my usual sources but came up empty-handed.
Psychologists abandoned the idea of giving each phobia a separate name a while back because a person can develop a phobia about literally anything. A name for each possible phobia would be hundreds of miles long, I imagine. Consequently, the number of phobias with names (bibliophobia, for example) is static and not used by anyone except writers and people (like me) who just like words.
Instead of individual words, phobias have been categorized into three main groups by clinicians. These are agoraphobia, social phobia, and specific phobia. All the good words ("arachniphobia", "genuphobia", etc.) are now called specific phobias. If someone has a true phobia about blimps, a clinician would describe it simply as "specific phobia regarding blimps". Not nearly as fun, I suppose, but it gets the job done.
There are two other cases where words end in "-phobia" but don't fit the definition of a true phobia. One is where a word simply means "vague fear or dislike of something" like "islamophobia" and often describes a specific form of racism or some other form of bigotry. The second case is where a word describes a medical condition, like "photophobia" (fear of light) or "hydrophobia" (fear of water, but actually a sign of rabies) and is treated as a symptom of disease.
2006-10-01 21:01:17 · answer #1 · answered by grey 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There isn't an exact phobia for those, but here is what I could find that comes close:
Acrophobia: Fear of heights.
Altophobia: Fear of heights
Anablephobia: Fear of looking up.
Ancraophobia: Fear of wind.
Aviophobia or Aviatophobia: Fear of flying.
Catapedaphobia: Fear of jumping from high and low places.
Hypsiphobia: Fear of height.
Pteromerhanophobia: Fear of flying.
2006-10-02 04:07:59 · answer #2 · answered by Twisted Maggie 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have this fear too. I remember just staring, transfixed when I actually saw one. It helps to get over the fear when you actually experience being near one & seeing it. I also have a fear of skyscrapers, & being surrounded by them got me over that easily. I still don't LIKE them, but I can function around them.
2006-10-03 00:27:30 · answer #3 · answered by Bronweyn 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I guess if riding one causes your fear it is acrophobia, fear of heights. If seeing one causes your fear I guess I would call that weird.
2006-10-02 03:40:39 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Blimpandhotairballoonaphobia...
Duh!
2006-10-02 04:26:43 · answer #5 · answered by mininjajo 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Sensible.
2006-10-02 03:41:37 · answer #6 · answered by MaqAtak 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋