Necrophobia is an irrational fear of things associated with death, causing intense anxiety and physical symptoms. It can be caused by traumatic experiences and can lead to other fears. Treatment includes therapy and medication. It is often confused with thanatophobia, the fear of dying itself.
Necrophobia is an overwhelming fear of things that are dead or associated with death. Those with this condition often experience intense anxiety and fear, as well as physical symptoms such as sweating, tremors, and nausea when exposed to something related to death, such as a dead body, a cemetery, or a funeral home. There is no specific cause of necrophobia, but symptoms can be reduced with treatment.
Symptoms
Like all phobias, necrophobia is an irrational fear. It’s different than a simple worry about death or anxious questions about what happens when a person dies; rather, it is fear or anxiety to such an extent that it becomes debilitating and affects a person’s daily life. A person with this condition may fear that there are dead bodies everywhere or that they will find a dead body. He or she may experience panic attacks when exposed to things that remind him of death, such as a church, a gravestone, or the corpse of an animal. Symptoms of panic attacks include dry mouth, rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and profuse sweating. Insomnia is another common symptom, as the person cannot get thoughts of death out of their minds.
Necrophobic people can develop many other fears, such as a fear of leaving the house because it seems more likely to encounter dead things outside, a fear of violent or sexual assault, or a fear of heights or being in enclosed spaces. People with this condition often have trouble attending events like funerals and can develop severe anxiety symptoms in situations like this. There are also a number of triggers; some necrophobics may only feel anxious when near a cemetery, while others may feel extremely stressed when watching horror movies.
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There is no specific cause of necrophobia, but some people develop it after watching someone or something die, or after attending a traumatic funeral as a child. Unexpected or forced exposure to a human corpse or dead animal can cause this phobia for some people. There may be a direct cause between past experiences and the development of this fear, and parents should take this into account when helping a child recover from the death of a loved one. Forcing a child to attend an open-casket funeral, for example, may not be a good idea, although this will not always cause a person to develop necrophobia.
Some people believe that the fear of death and dying things has become much more exaggerated in the modern world because most people have eliminated the natural presence of death in their lives. In the past, people often died at home and the bodies were prepared for burial by the family; a casket could stand in a house for several days as people came to pay their respects. In modern times, this happens less frequently and most people in Western societies die in hospital, effectively removing death from daily life.
Treatment
Since there is no one cause of necrophobia, there is also no one-size-fits-all treatment. Therapists can use a number of techniques to help a person overcome the aspects of this phobia that prevent them from living a normal life. Desensitization therapy works by gradually exposing a patient to those things that she fears, in hopes of making them seem less frightening. Cognitive behavioral therapy can also be used to help the person control their thoughts and look at things that trigger fear differently. Psychiatrists may be able to prescribe anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications, which can help reduce panic symptoms.
Necrophobia and Thanatophobia
This condition is often confused with thanatophobia, which is the fear of dying itself. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, mostly because they share many of the same causes and triggers. Thanatophobia is not the same thing as a general anxiety about death or “existential angst,” which is dread or fear without a specific cause; it is a specific, irrational fear in which the patient becomes obsessed with the idea of their own death to the point that they can no longer function normally in life. People with thanatophobia can also experience necrophobia, and the symptoms and treatment are often very similar.
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