Phobias

The medical-encyclopaedia section of the Reader’s Digest Family Health Guide defines PHOBIA as an “extreme fear, particularly one so overpowering that the victim cannot function in a normal way”. It may appear completely irrational, yet the victim is generally unable to account for it. “Phobias may be related to repressed aggressive impulses, or may symbolise fear of something else in the patient’s unconscious life.”

An interesting phobia is phobophobia, which is the irrational fear of fear itself.

“Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs typically during a thunderstorm … between electrically charged regions of a cloud …, between two clouds …, or between a cloud and the ground …” Wikipedia. “Thunder is the sound caused by lightning,” Wikipedia.

Astraphobia is the irrational fear of thunder and lightning – a condition which may be exhibited by cats and dogs as well as people.

“Adeline Virginia Woolf … was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device,” Wikipedia. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a play by Edward Albee first staged in 1962,” Wikipedia.

An irrational fear of wolves might be called lycophobia – if it exists as a specific medical condition (but probably not). People, particularly superstitious Americans, might be more likely to be afraid of werewolves, however – in which case they might be said to suffer from lycanthrophobia.

People might be even more likely to be afraid of certain animals belonging to the same genus (Canis) as modern wolves: they would be said to suffer from cynophobia, the irrational fear of dogs – which is a specific medical condition in its own right.

The irrational fear of flying, or travelling by airborne means of transport, may be called aviophobia. Its hybrid etymology (mixing French and Greek) might offend some purists, but it does describe a specific medical condition – the former Arsenal player Dennis Bergkamp is living proof that it exists.

Hydrophobia is the irrational fear of water – a specific medical condition that is commonly a symptom of rabies.

Could a God-fearing person be described as having theophobia?

Vera wrote:Could a God-fearing person be described as having theophobia?

Only if that fear is like a real number that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers.