MISOPHOBIA: SYMPTOMS, CAUSES, COMORBIDITY, TREATMENTS - ECONOMÍA - 2025

The mysophobia or germofobia is specific phobia characterized by excessive and irrational fear to bacteria and other germs. To be able to consider fear as a symptom of a phobia, it has to cause difficulties in the life of the person suffering from it.

Having some respect for dirt or germs is normal and healthy. However, for people with misophobia, the fear is so great that it will lead them to experience quite high suffering.

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For example, many of those affected will avoid going anywhere they perceive as unclean, or eating food that they have not prepared themselves.

Misophobia is classified in the world of psychology within the category of specific phobia; And as such, it is an anxiety disorder. In addition, it usually occurs alongside other more serious psychiatric problems, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder.

If not resolved, this specific phobia can severely interfere with the normal functioning of the person in their day-to-day life. Fortunately, once it is detected, there are both psychological and pharmacological treatments that can help alleviate the most serious symptoms of misophobia.

Symptoms

Excessive fear of dirt or germs

As with the rest of specific phobias recognized within the world of psychology, the main symptom of misophobia is an irrational and much higher than normal fear of something specific.

In this case, it is a pronounced fear of dirt and germs, and of all objects that are perceived as contaminated.

Depending on how the specific case is, each person may fear slightly different elements. For example, certain individuals are only afraid of microbes (a variant of this disorder known as "germophobia"). Others feel uneasy when being in the presence of any object or living being that they perceive as dirty.

It is important to note that the fear that a person with misophobia feels goes far beyond the normal concern for cleanliness. It is an exaggerated fear, which interferes with the normal development of the individual's daily routine. Furthermore, it tends to cause you much more suffering than normal.

Avoidance towards feared situations

In general, the fear that people with misophobia feel towards dirt leads them to want to avoid at all costs any situation in which they think they will be exposed to it.

This usually causes all kinds of problems in their daily life, while making it impossible for them to enjoy many activities that they would otherwise do.

Some of the situations that people with misophobia tend to avoid are:

• Eating out of your home for fear that food is contaminated.
• Visit other people's homes.
• Avoid bathing in pools or in the sea to avoid catching infections.
• Use public toilets
• Stop going outside to avoid being exposed to dirt.

Depending on the severity of the misophobia that the person experiences, this psychological disorder can simply be an annoyance, or become a real impediment to doing practically anything.

Anxiety

In situations that the person would like to avoid but which for some reason has to face, it is common for them to experience classic anxiety symptoms. These can be more or less strong depending on the severity of the disorder and the specific circumstance in which it is found.

Some of the most common symptoms of anxiety are shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, a sensation of heat throughout the body, dizziness, palpitations, excessive sweating, and a feeling of suffocation. In the most serious cases, the person may also suffer a strong fear of losing control or dying.

This anxiety is one of the main causes that individuals with misophobia avoid all those situations in which they believe they will have to encounter dirt or germs.

However, despite being extremely unpleasant, these symptoms do not pose any real danger to the person.

Unusual behaviors

Finally, in some cases of misophobia, the affected person adopts certain behaviors or rituals designed to reduce or eliminate their contact with any type of dirt.

These rituals can be really effective but exaggerated, or on the contrary have no real relationship with the problem.

For example, an individual with misophobia may adopt the habit of showering several times a day, to be as clean as possible; or wash your hands every twenty minutes to avoid contact with germs.

Others, however, may show other behaviors that are much more extreme and disabling. For example, some people with this disorder refuse to have any type of physical contact with others, or only do so if they are wearing sterile gloves.

Of all the symptoms described, this is the one most closely related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. In fact, the line that separates both mental illnesses is often confusing, and has to be determined in each case by a specialist.

Causes

What can lead a person to develop such an exaggerated fear of dirt and germs? As with most psychological disorders, there is no simple answer to this question. It is believed that misophobia would appear in most cases due to the interaction between genetic and environmental causes.

Genetic factors

According to various studies on anxiety and related disorders, certain biological differences would cause some people to have a greater predisposition to develop phobias than others. However, this vulnerability would not manifest itself in all cases, nor would it always manifest itself in the same way.

On the other hand, individuals with certain personality types would have a higher probability of developing disorders such as specific phobias. One of the traits most related to anxiety is neuroticism; And in the specific case of misophobia, they could also affect openness to experience and responsibility.

Environmental factors

But why do some people with genetic vulnerability end up developing this specific phobia, while in others it does not? The answer could be in certain experiences lived during childhood and the development of the individual, which would cause them to end up suffering from this disorder.

In the case of most phobias, they are normally associated with one or more traumatic experiences that the person would have suffered during their first years of life. These would be related to the object that causes fear, usually directly, although the relationship is not so clear.

Another possible environmental cause is that the person has grown up in an environment in which a great fear of dirt is instilled. For example, their parents, without suffering from misophobia, may require that everything be perfectly clean and warn the child of everything bad that could happen if it was not.

Finally, one of the most important environmental factors in the appearance of a specific phobia is the presence of a lot of stress in the person's daily life.

This can trigger their genetic vulnerability and previous predisposition to kick in and lead to this psychological disorder.

Comorbidity

Misophobia is a somewhat peculiar mental illness, in the sense that it is closely related to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

These two pathologies tend to appear together very often, and sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate one from the other. In this section we tell you what their exact relationship is.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder and misophobia

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a pathology characterized by the presence of intrusive thoughts related to a recurring theme (obsessions) and the practice of certain behaviors aimed at reducing its prevalence (compulsions). OCD can be associated with many issues, but one of the most common is cleaning.

People with this mental illness are constantly assailed by a great concern related to dirt and germs. In this sense, their fear is very similar to that experienced by an individual with misophobia; but the exact symptoms differ greatly between the two disorders.

Thus, in misophobia, fear only normally appears when the person faces a situation in which they are in contact with something dirty. However, the nature of obsessive-compulsive disorder means that fear is present practically all the time a person is awake.

In addition, in OCD, the individual will engage in various "corrective" behaviors that they believe will help them avoid fear or the worst imagined consequences of dirt. This is something that does not happen in the case of a specific phobia.

On the other hand, when both disorders occur together, it is normal for a specialist to focus on solving the obsessive-compulsive disorder first. When the symptoms of this are reduced, usually those of misophobia tend to do so at the same time.

Treatments

Misophobia can be quite a disabling disorder for those who suffer from it if it is not treated correctly. However, there are several techniques that have proven highly effective in solving it. In fact, specific phobias are one of the types of mental illness with the best prognosis of all.

The most common way to treat a phobia of this type is the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy, with which a very high percentage of recoveries is achieved. In the most difficult cases, in addition, you can resort to the use of psychotropic drugs to alleviate some of the most serious symptoms.

Finally, when neither of these two approaches is effective or you want to try something new, it is possible to use a few different therapies such as ACT or hypnosis. Both approaches have also been shown to produce good results in some cases.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

The most used approach to treat misophobia is cognitive behavioral therapy. With it, the patient is taught to face their fears little by little, while learning to reduce their anxiety response and change their erroneous beliefs about dirt and germs.

The main technique used in this therapy to treat a specific phobia is habituation. With it, the individual is exposed to situations that increasingly scare him. First you start with something very simple, until the person can cope adequately, and then the intensity level is raised slightly.

At the same time, through cognitive restructuring and changing beliefs, the individual learns to challenge their irrational ideas about dirt and its possible dangers, and to replace them with others that are more realistic. This helps make exposure easier and easier.

Use of psychotropic drugs

In some cases, the use of medications to alleviate some of the more complicated symptoms of misophobia may be recommended.

For some people, the anxiety is so extreme that it is necessary to lower it in some way before the possibility of beginning psychological treatment can even be considered.

Psychotropic drugs are designed exactly with this goal in mind. They are great for relieving anxiety immediately, but in the long term they can become addictive and cause very unpleasant side effects. Therefore, they should only be used as a tool to facilitate the course of psychological therapy.

That said, most studies suggest that the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy increases when it is combined with certain types of psychological medications.

Other techniques

Although medication and cognitive behavioral therapy are the most widely used approaches to treat misophobia, they are not the only effective ones. In some cases, the use of other less conventional techniques can provide even better results.

Some of the most commonly used alternative techniques are acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and hypnotherapy. Both have great scientific backing, and they can be a great option for certain types of people.

References

1. "Mysophobia (germophobia): the fear of germs" in: Psycom. Retrieved on: November 22, 2018 from Psycom: psycom.net.
2. "Mysophobia" in: Very Well Mind. Retrieved on: November 22, 2018 from Very Well Mind: verywellmind.com.
3. What is mysophobia and what causes a fear of germs? Symptoms, treatment and celebrity sufferers ”in: The Sun. Retrieved on: November 22, 2018 from The Sun: thesun.co.uk.
4. "Mysophobia" in: Good Therapy. Retrieved on: November 22, 2018 from Good Therapy: goodtherapy.com.
5. "Mysophobia" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: November 22, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.