Scare of water
Symptoms, Treatment, Definition, Hydrophobia, and More
What is aquaphobia?
Most of us have some degree of fear when it comes to water. Typically, we overcome those fears or learn ways to cope with them. But if you have aquaphobia, or the fear of water, you live with a persistent and abnormal amount of fear and anxiety that prevents you from even getting close to water.
Aquaphobia is a specific phobia. This is an irrational fear of something that doesn’t cause much danger. You may have aquaphobia if you find that any source of water causes you an excessive amount of anxiety. This can include a swimming pool, a lake, an ocean, or even a bathtub.
Aquaphobia is often mistaken for another phobia called hydrophobia. Even though they both involve water, aquaphobia and hydrophobia aren’t the same.
Hydrophobia is an aversion to water that develops in humans during the later stages of rabies.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that specific phobias affect 19. 2 million adults in the United States. Women are twice as likely to experience them than men.
Many adults who live with a specific phobia, such as aquaphobia, begin developing symptoms related to their fear in childhood or adolescence.
Seeing water can trigger intense fear and anxiety in a person with aquaphobia. This could be a very small amount of water, like what’s found in the bathroom sink, or a large body of water, such as an ocean. The amount of water isn’t what causes the phobia. It’s the water itself that creates the fear and resulting anxiety.
Some of the more common symptoms of aquaphobia include:
- an immediate feeling of intense fear, anxiety, and panic when thinking about water
- a persistent, excessive, or unreasonable fear when exposed to water
- recognizing that the fear of water is excessive or out of proportion to the actual threat
- avoidance of water
- sweating
- rapid heartbeat
- tight chest and difficulty breathing
- nausea
- dizziness or fainting
The causes of specific phobias aren’t well-understood.
However, there’s some evidence that phobias can be genetically inherited. If you have a family member who has a mental health condition, such as anxiety or other phobias, you may be at risk of developing a phobia.
Aquaphobia is often caused by a traumatic event during childhood, such as a near-drowning. It can also be the result of a series of negative experiences. These typically happen in childhood and aren’t as severe as a traumatic experience.
The Mayo Clinic also suggests that changes in brain function may also play a role in developing specific phobias.
Doctors use the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) to help them diagnose mental health conditions.
Currently, the DSM-5 doesn’t have a specific diagnosis or category for aquaphobia. Instead, it identifies a fear of water under the diagnosis for specific phobia.
If you suspect you have aquaphobia, make an appointment with your doctor. They’ll be able to refer you to a mental health specialist who can diagnose and treat your phobia.
Based on the criteria from the DSM-5, a mental health specialist will likely diagnose aquaphobia (or a specific phobia) if you have experienced the symptoms listed above for at least six months.
Part of the diagnosis also includes ruling out other mental health conditions, such as:
- obsessive-compulsive disorder
- post-traumatic stress disorder
- panic disorder
Since aquaphobia is considered a specific phobia, it’s treated most commonly with two forms of psychotherapy: exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.
The preferred treatment method is exposure therapy. During this type of therapy, you’ll be repeatedly exposed to the source of the phobia — in this case, water. As you’re exposed to water, your therapist will keep track of your reactions, thoughts, feelings, and sensations in order to help you manage your anxiety.
With cognitive behavioral therapy, you’ll learn to challenge your thoughts and beliefs about your fear of water.
As you learn to challenge your fears, you’ll also develop strategies to cope with those thought patterns and beliefs.
In addition to professional treatment, there are also several self-care techniques you can practice at home. Mindfulness-based strategies, daily physical activity, yoga, and deep breathing are all helpful strategies when treating phobias.
In the later stages of treatment, you may decide to work with a specially trained swim instructor who can help you learn to feel comfortable swimming.
Your doctor might also prescribe medications to treat some symptoms of anxiety and panic. But the Mayo Clinic notes these aren’t used long term. Rather, medications can help during initial treatment and for specific reasons.
A treatment plan that includes psychotherapy — along with the support of loved ones — can help you learn to manage your phobia successfully.
If you suspect that you have aquaphobia, make an appointment to see your doctor. They can help you find the treatment that will work best for you.
Symptoms, Treatment, Definition, Hydrophobia, and More
What is aquaphobia?
Most of us have some degree of fear when it comes to water. Typically, we overcome those fears or learn ways to cope with them. But if you have aquaphobia, or the fear of water, you live with a persistent and abnormal amount of fear and anxiety that prevents you from even getting close to water.
Aquaphobia is a specific phobia. This is an irrational fear of something that doesn’t cause much danger. You may have aquaphobia if you find that any source of water causes you an excessive amount of anxiety. This can include a swimming pool, a lake, an ocean, or even a bathtub.
Aquaphobia is often mistaken for another phobia called hydrophobia. Even though they both involve water, aquaphobia and hydrophobia aren’t the same.
Hydrophobia is an aversion to water that develops in humans during the later stages of rabies.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that specific phobias affect 19.
2 million adults in the United States. Women are twice as likely to experience them than men.
Many adults who live with a specific phobia, such as aquaphobia, begin developing symptoms related to their fear in childhood or adolescence.
Seeing water can trigger intense fear and anxiety in a person with aquaphobia. This could be a very small amount of water, like what’s found in the bathroom sink, or a large body of water, such as an ocean. The amount of water isn’t what causes the phobia. It’s the water itself that creates the fear and resulting anxiety.
Some of the more common symptoms of aquaphobia include:
- an immediate feeling of intense fear, anxiety, and panic when thinking about water
- a persistent, excessive, or unreasonable fear when exposed to water
- recognizing that the fear of water is excessive or out of proportion to the actual threat
- avoidance of water
- sweating
- rapid heartbeat
- tight chest and difficulty breathing
- nausea
- dizziness or fainting
The causes of specific phobias aren’t well-understood.
However, there’s some evidence that phobias can be genetically inherited. If you have a family member who has a mental health condition, such as anxiety or other phobias, you may be at risk of developing a phobia.
Aquaphobia is often caused by a traumatic event during childhood, such as a near-drowning. It can also be the result of a series of negative experiences. These typically happen in childhood and aren’t as severe as a traumatic experience.
The Mayo Clinic also suggests that changes in brain function may also play a role in developing specific phobias.
Doctors use the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) to help them diagnose mental health conditions.
Currently, the DSM-5 doesn’t have a specific diagnosis or category for aquaphobia. Instead, it identifies a fear of water under the diagnosis for specific phobia.
If you suspect you have aquaphobia, make an appointment with your doctor. They’ll be able to refer you to a mental health specialist who can diagnose and treat your phobia.
Based on the criteria from the DSM-5, a mental health specialist will likely diagnose aquaphobia (or a specific phobia) if you have experienced the symptoms listed above for at least six months.
Part of the diagnosis also includes ruling out other mental health conditions, such as:
- obsessive-compulsive disorder
- post-traumatic stress disorder
- panic disorder
Since aquaphobia is considered a specific phobia, it’s treated most commonly with two forms of psychotherapy: exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.
The preferred treatment method is exposure therapy. During this type of therapy, you’ll be repeatedly exposed to the source of the phobia — in this case, water. As you’re exposed to water, your therapist will keep track of your reactions, thoughts, feelings, and sensations in order to help you manage your anxiety.
With cognitive behavioral therapy, you’ll learn to challenge your thoughts and beliefs about your fear of water.
As you learn to challenge your fears, you’ll also develop strategies to cope with those thought patterns and beliefs.
In addition to professional treatment, there are also several self-care techniques you can practice at home. Mindfulness-based strategies, daily physical activity, yoga, and deep breathing are all helpful strategies when treating phobias.
In the later stages of treatment, you may decide to work with a specially trained swim instructor who can help you learn to feel comfortable swimming.
Your doctor might also prescribe medications to treat some symptoms of anxiety and panic. But the Mayo Clinic notes these aren’t used long term. Rather, medications can help during initial treatment and for specific reasons.
A treatment plan that includes psychotherapy — along with the support of loved ones — can help you learn to manage your phobia successfully.
If you suspect that you have aquaphobia, make an appointment to see your doctor. They can help you find the treatment that will work best for you.
Aquaphobia: fear of water
Aquaphobia is the fear of water, which manifests itself in the fear of swimming in ponds, sailing on a ship, and even taking a bath. It is considered one of the most common types of phobias and is dangerous, as a person in a state of panic can harm himself and others ...
The famous American actress Michelle Pfeiffer spent half of the film "What Lies Behind" wet - she was "drowned" in the lake, in the bathroom, poured with rain and even dipped in puddles. The situation was complicated by the fact that Madame Pfeiffer was terribly afraid of water. nine0003
The danger of aquaphobia is that it is accompanied by somatic reactions of the body.
Only the constant presence of a professional diver nearby helped the actress overcome fear and shoot a picture. Even during the shooting of episodes with puddles and swimming in the bathroom, the actress demanded that the lifeguard be a couple of meters away from her.
This is not a whim - for people who are faced with such a phobia, water, even in the most harmless manifestation, can be associated with great danger. nine0003
Among the actors with aquaphobia, one can also recall Carmen Electra. The irony is that in Baywatch, the blonde beauty played the role of a girl helping drowning people in the sea. In life, Carmen flatly refuses to go deeper than waist-deep. According to the actress, she had a phobia at the age of 18, when she almost drowned in the lake. According to statistics, 86% of all people with a similar phobia experienced similar accidents. Less commonly, a phobia is born because of a tragedy or if someone close to you drowned or suffered in the water. nine0003
See also
Fear of exams
Phobias could have been avoided if, immediately after the emotional “shake”, the help of a professional psychotherapist was obtained (this is especially true for children, who experience all events more acutely).
Alas, more often people prefer to think that time heals better than doctors, but as a result, shock first turns into fear, and then into phobia.
The danger of aquaphobia is that it is accompanied by somatic reactions of the body. A person who has fallen into the water has an increased pulse, shortness of breath, dizziness or convulsions. This is dangerous even in the bathroom (you can slip and fall), but at depth it is fraught with tragedy. nine0003
When the psychotherapists of the Matspen clinic carry out diagnostics, the most important thing is to find the cause of the phobia. As soon as the specialist finds the cause, sessions of cognitive therapy begin. In the Matspen clinic, a person with aquaphobia is taken out of this state in 1-1.5 months. With the help of cognitive behavioral therapy, the patient learns to recognize the causes that provoke panic, and masters techniques for managing their emotional state.
nine0029Share:
How to overcome the fear of water? — blog I Love Supersport
Hydrophobia is the fear of water, it occurs in both adults and children. It is very important not to miss the phobic reaction in oneself among all this spectrum of emotions. The most common among them are: Hydrophobia - an emotional request for distance from water. This is a generalized name for the fear of water. Bathophobia - fear of deep water. Fear of depth often arises against the background of stress received in the water, an unsuccessful attempt to learn to swim. But psychologists also note that a person’s innate anxiety may be the cause. Often it is associated with an unfavorable situation in the family, which leads to distrust of the world in general and fear of the unknown. nine0003 Thalassophobia - fear of the sea, open boundless spaces. It manifests itself as severe discomfort and panic at the sight of the sea or when trying to contact the sea. Psychologists believe that the root of the problem may be distrust of the world, as is the case with other hydrophobias. Ablutophobia - persistent obsessive fear of washing, brushing teeth or washing hands. Sometimes this form of fear is characterized by fear of any toilets and bathrooms. There can be many reasons, for example, it may not even be in the water itself, but in the accompanying stress, something could scare in childhood while washing and bathing in the bathroom. nine0003 If we find one or more of these phobic reactions in ourselves, then it is worth asking ourselves questions: You can answer these questions on your own or together with a psychotherapist. Psychotherapist Natalya Alexandrovna Borodina believes that the fear of water is a matter of trust in the world, other people and oneself, and this is what needs to be worked on in therapy. nine0003 Do not be disappointed or reproach yourself if at some point you feel fear, go back up the step to maintain a sense of comfort and safety. Psychologists also advise starting contact with water in the same way that small children begin it when they play near a pond. Find a situation in which water will not cause fear, in which contact with water will be pleasant. Concentrate on something pleasant, play in the water, go a little deeper, try to lift your feet off the ground. nine0003 Don't be discouraged or beat yourself up if you feel fear at some point, go back up the step to keep yourself feeling comfortable and safe. Then you can try to swim at least a small segment at a shallow depth. The main thing is gradualness, do not set yourself too big tasks at once and do not try to overcome fear - act in such a way that there is no fear, but there is a sense of security and pleasure from contact with water. If it is very difficult to feel safe, then ask someone you trust to insure you. Gradually unlearn being afraid, and everything will work out for you! But we still advise you to contact a psychotherapist, because all phobias are based on experiences in some other area of life, these experiences need to be worked out.
Sometimes, in order to reduce the influence of fears in a person's life, it is enough not to come into contact with them. But the fear of water is almost impossible to get around. A person with hydrophobia avoids open spaces on the water, does not swim, even if he can, starts to panic if he loses the bottom. Such a phobia creates many inconveniences in life. For example, people with a phobia of water cannot visit pools, baths. For some, difficulties arise in everyday life, even taking a shower turns into a test. nine0019
What is this inexplicable, irrational fear of water? This fear is not justified, but carries information about the relationship with the elements. The elements have incredible power that changes the state of a person, both for good and for bad. For example, fire warms and destroys, water cools and supercools. We can contact the elements, for example, we wash ourselves in the morning, but not all other contacts with water will be acceptable. If it’s not scary to wash, then it’s scary to sink entirely into the water, it’s scary not to see the shore, it’s scary to dive into muddy water.
Some situation is perceived calmly, some cause fear, and some panic. nine0003 Phobic reactions.
How to deal with phobic reactions?
— Do I really want to get rid of this phobia?
— How does this phobia help me, and in what way does it limit me?
