Glossary of Phobias

A phobia is the fear of something, typically a strong, irrational fear that prompts an overreaction. Phobias can be serious psychological problems for some people, and some phobias are medical conditions.

acrophobia - heights

agoraphobia – open spaces; used to refer to very strong fear or anxiety of situations that cause a person to feel anxious, typically, but not necessary, in public or social situations

anatidaephobia – being watched by a duck; coined by Gary Larson in a Far Side cartoon

androphobia – men

anthropophobia - people

arachibutyrophobia – peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth

athazagoraphobia – forgetting, or being forgotten or ignored

cacophobia – ugliness

coimetrophobia - cemeteries

cenosillicaphobia – an empty glass; probably coined speciously by a Latin major on his 21st birthday

coulrophobia – clowns

cryophobia – cold, extreme cold, ice or frost

ergasiophobia – work or functioning, particularly a surgeon’s fear of operating

food neophobia – unfamiliar food; avoiding of or reluctance to taste unfamiliar food

iatrophobia – medical doctors

phobophobia – fear or phobias

photophobia – bright light; sufferers can have strong sensitivity to light and may experience pain or migraines

sesquipedalophobia – long words (a silly variation, not used in formal writing, is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia)

xenophobia – foreigners

Superimmunity by Paul Pearsall

Psychologist Paul Pearsall was an early proponent of current notions of mind-body medicine. For Pearsall, it was important to heal a person’s life even if it wasn’t possible to cure their disease. Often a disease can be the body’s way of getting a person’s attention, and letting him know a change is needed. People who make those changes can experience healing, sometimes in the form of a cure and sometime as health and happiness in the midst of disease. Pearsall described some of his ideas in Superimmunity.

In this book, Pearsall draws from Eastern medicine an organizing theme: hot and cold thinking. Hot thinkers are fast, impatient, black-or-white thinkers. They can be judgmental and prone to exaggeration, overreaction and isolation. Cold thinkers overreact to trivial things and underreact to important things. They are prone to passivity and feeling of inadequacy. They are isolated in their own way, and though often out of touch with their emotions, they often despair.

The body responds to these thinking styles. Hot reactors are always on the attack, and their immune systems attack their bodies. Heart disease is associated with hot people. Cold reactors are inactive, so their bodies may respond with excessive activity, particularly cell growth (i.e. cancer).

Pearsall does not eschew medicine. If you are facing a serious illness, the likes of heart disease or cancer, you need a lot of medical help. However, you also need to enlist the aid of your own immune system, which may be doing something counterproductive if it is very active at all. You’re immune system is closely linked to your brain, more so that was commonly thought when Pearsall was writing in the 1980s, so getting the best immune response calls for leaving hot or cold thinking for something more balanced.

“Until recently, we have behaved as if the immune system were somehow separate from us, doing its job secretly, automatically, beyond our control…. Research now tells us that our immune system functions within a supersystem of mind and body,” Paul Pearsall, Superimmunity

Superimmunity includes many tests to help you identify if you tend to be a hot or cold thinker (you can be both). From there, Pearsall offers strategies for cooling off or warming up your thinking as needed. This can mean observing your body, listening to your disease and getting in touch with your emotions in ways that can be unfamiliar to one in the throes of hot or cold reaction. This self-evaluation that reveals the underlying dysfunction, and your own exploration and imagination may uncover your path to healing.

Pearsall does not suggest that changing your thinking will always lead to a cure, though sometimes it might. Disease and mortality are part of being a human. However, you can truly live while you are alive, and in this since experience healing. Life is more than surviving, eating, drinking and breathing. It is important to live as fully as you can.

Paul Pearsall also wrote

The Beethoven Factor

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need

Toxic Success

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Bnson with Miriam Z. Klipper

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson with Marg Stark

Pearsall, Paul. Superimmunity: Master Your Emotions & Improve Your Health. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.