Fear of dogs is a phobia (irrational fear), a special mental disorder, in consequence of which a person panically fears dogs, rabies or bites. Sometimes it occurs as a subspecies of schizophrenia, depression or in the structure of other neurotic disorders.
What is the name of fear of dogs?
Like any disease of this kind, the fear of dogs has its own medical name, moreover, separate for each species. For example, irrational fear of dogs in general is called kinofobiey (from ancient Greek κυν - dog and φόβος fear). If a person is afraid of dog-bite, then it's about adactophobia. If the fear caused by animals is associated with fear of catching rabies, this is rabiephobia.
In addition, there is also a pseudophobia that occurs in latent and clinical sadists - they try to justify such an unnatural, abnormal clerical worldview with such a "phobia". Pseudophobia is always easy to identify, because in this case a person experiences an attack of violent aggression towards dogs.
Fear of dogs: information
Currently, about 1.5 to 3.5% of people on earth are affected by cinephobia. Most often this disease occurs in young people, and the disease is not dangerous. Only 10% of cases require medical intervention. In order to diagnose "kinophobia", all the following criteria must be met:
- The phobic situation is avoided when possible;
- psychological or vegetative symptoms are the primary manifestations of anxiety, rather than secondary to other signs - delirium or obsessive thoughts;
- An anxiety is limited to a phobic object or situation.
True cinema phobia is overwhelmingly passive. In the most difficult cases, various pathological conditions are possible - from stuporous to hysteroid - even simply by seeing the image of a dog.