08/04/2010
18-30's phobias revealed
by William Hobson
More people between the age of 18-30 are terrified by spiders, needles or clowns than have a fear of heights or flying according to a new survey.
The Daily Mirror reports that new research has provided some insight into the deep-seated fears of a generation. Nearly 2,000 people between the ages of 18 and 30 were quizzed by travel company Tenerife.co.uk. The company had commissioned the poll to investigate how prevalent a phobia over plane travel was in comparison to other fears.
Researchers asked the 18-30 year olds "Which of the following are you scared of?" in a multi-answer poll. To their surprise, younger people were more likely to have a fear of spiders or even a fear of clowns than be scared of air travel. In their survey, the top ten fears contained some unexpected results.
Arachnophobia and Trypananophobia - fear of needles - were by far the most likely reasons that anyone in this age group would ever need to seek phobia cures, with 54% and 51% of respondents citing them as sources of personal anxiety.
Amazingly many people (44%) said they were scared by clowns - Coulrophobia - coming nearly 10% in front of those who had a fear of flying. Hypnotherapy and other cognitive behavioural treatments can prove effective in overcoming this kind of emotional response no matter what the source of fear, but it will certainly come as a surprise to many therapists to hear how widespread fear of Coulrophobia is.
After flying, Claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces) was found to effect 23% of people whilst the fear of dying (Thanatophobia) scared 19%. Germs (Mysophobia) scared 14%, whilst 11% had a fear of heights (Acrophobia) and 3% were Xenophobic - which doesn't mean that they were scared of foreigners, but that they had a fear of strangers. A final puzzling result was the 2% who said they experienced "Emetophobia"; the fear of vomiting.
Still, though some of these results may come as a surprise to some extent they reflect real issues that concern some people. There are many individuals who have an irrational and debilitating fear of heights, flying or other types of phobia; treatment such as hypnotherapy can help people overcome these demons of the subconscious and free them to act without fear.
Hypnotherapy helps Northw : Next → ← Previous : Zoo offers hypnotherapy p