PANOPHOBIA: SYMPTOMS, CAUSES AND TREATMENT - ARTE - 2024

The panofobia is a vague and persistent threat or fear of some unknown evil. It is an irrational fear, that is, there is no logical cause that triggers it. This phobia is better known as non-specific fear or fear of everything.

The term panophobia comes from the Greek panto, which means everyone, and from phobos, which means fear. It is considered that this word can also come from the Greek god Pan, who instilled feelings of fear or panic.

There is no specific classification for this phobia in mental disorders manuals such as DSM or ICD, but it is considered that it may be part of other pathologies such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder or, especially, generalized anxiety disorder.

In the latter, one of the main characteristics that define it is excessive concern about the occurrence of a series of events, as occurs in the case of panophobia.

It is a very limiting and harmful phobia for the person who suffers it, because unlike other phobias that are specified in some specific event, object or animal, in this case the range of fears is much wider.

Causes of Panophobia

It is often difficult to know the causes of panophobia because often the person does not remember when or before what specific event the fear began. But most studies agree that the origin of panophobia happens because the person has previously developed other specific phobias.

For example, a person who is afraid of flying in a plane (aerophobia), of speaking in public (social phobia), of spiders (arachnophobia), may end up extrapolating this fear to the symptoms caused by facing these situations.

Having these previous fears makes the person more vulnerable and over time different events or places can cause the same fear as the first phobias.

In this way, fear becomes generalized and the person begins to avoid and flee from everything that fear produces in him, causing fear to increase, becoming a vicious circle.

Experience of a traumatic event

Another possible cause for the development of this phobia is having experienced a traumatic event or event during childhood or adolescence.

As a result of this situation, the person develops an intense fear that this will happen again and therefore generates a fear of that situation and prevents it from happening again at all costs. This avoidance again increases the fear.

Genetic heritage

Another cause for the development of panophobia is related to genetic inheritance. Some studies show that feelings of fear and anxiety can be passed down through genes, just like some personality traits.

According to research, this transmission does not mean that the person will necessarily develop the phobia, but it does mean that they will be more vulnerable or have a greater predisposition to develop it if it occurs together with another set of factors, such as being exposed to a traumatic situation.

Learned inheritance

And finally, we can point to the learned inheritance as another cause for developing the phobia. Numerous studies show that when observing the fearful behavior of parents or figures of reference in certain situations, events, animals, etc. the person learns to have that same fear.

The child learns to incorporate the same reaction that he observes in the parents. When a child has not yet reached the capacity of reasoning, and sees that his reference figures constantly react with fear and anxiety in front of different situations, he comes to believe that there is something real to fear in them. This learning process contributes to the phobia.

The development of the phobia is different in each person, but as a rule it increases over time if it is not remedied and proper treatment is started.

Symptoms

The main symptom of panophobia is persistent fear or dread of practically everything. It includes the fear of objects, animals, situations, people, etc.

The person who suffers from this phobia usually has a constant feeling of fear, which leads him to avoid situations and contacts. One of the first symptoms therefore is social isolation.

On a psychological level, the main symptoms are depression, anxiety, sadness or constant crying, low self-esteem and feelings of helplessness or guilt. Obsessive and recurring thoughts about fear also appear that prevent the person from thinking or focusing on other tasks.

In some cases, the fear of losing control or going crazy also appears. The person has an intense and persistent fear and therefore the desire to flee or escape from the situation is also constant.

On a physical level, symptoms such as dizziness, palpitations, tremors, excessive sweating, chest pain, rapid breathing, pain and / or body tension, vomiting or abdominal pain appear.

A specific symptom of this phobia is the constant adrenaline discharges that the person suffers due to the permanent state of alertness. These shocks are always followed by a period of fatigue in which the body needs to recover from the effort. By having these discharges constantly, the state of fatigue in these people is practically permanent.

Treatments

There are different specific treatments for panophobia. The application of one or the other will be defined by the characteristics of the patient, the severity of the phobia or by the orientation of the therapist.

Systematic desensitization

Systematic desensitization is one of the most effective techniques in the treatment of panophobia. This strategy, which has become one of the most used, was created by Wolpe in 1958.

It is aimed at reducing anxiety responses produced by exposure to feared objects or situations and at eliminating avoidance or flight responses. It is based on the launching of responses incompatible with fear the moment it appears, preventing it from developing.

The response incompatible with fear is relaxation, so one of the main actions will be aimed at training this relaxation response to be able to start it when the person is faced with the object or situation that produces the phobia.

And on the other hand, a list is made of everything that causes fear to the person and, under the supervision of the therapist, all these fears are progressively exposed, starting with those that produce less fear until reaching those that produce the greatest discomfort. Once the previous ones have been surpassed.

The exhibition can be live (directly facing the object of discomfort) or in imagination. At the same time that the exhibition is carried out, the relaxation techniques previously learned and rehearsed are put into operation.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy has also been shown to be effective in the treatment of panophobia. This therapy is based on the fact that what a person thinks or says is not as important as what they believe.

If beliefs are irrational or distorted, this leads the person to develop disorders such as irrational fear. Just as the person has learned to distort reality and have an excessive fear of objects that should not produce it, she can learn to stop having that fear if the beliefs that have led her to have it are discussed and questioned.

The person who has panophobia perceives everything around him as dangerous and threatening and also at all times anticipates that something bad is going to happen.

With this treatment the therapist aims to eliminate this type of disturbing thoughts and replace them with others that are realistic, rational and therefore do not produce the fear or physiological activation of the previous ones.

Self-instructions

Derived from cognitive behavioral therapy, another technique that has been shown to be effective in treating panophobia is self-instruction training.

It consists of a change in behavior in which the self-verbalizations that the person makes in any situation that causes discomfort are modified. The objective of this technique is to introduce a change in what the person says to herself before encountering the feared situation, during and after. For example, before the typical thought of this phobia.

“Something bad is coming, something terrible will happen and I will not be prepared to face it. It will be horrible ”. The therapist proposes the subject to modify it by another more realistic and adaptive thought, such as “if the situation that you fear occurs, I will be prepared to face it.

It is not so horrible, I have already lived it other times and it has not been so harmful ”. These types of instructions are previously rehearsed so that at the time of being exposed to the feared situation the person has correctly internalized them.

Hypnosis

Another commonly used treatment for panophobia is hypnosis. The fundamental task of hypnosis is to locate in the subconscious of the person the first manifestation of that fear and the reason that triggered it since normally the subject is not able to consciously recognize when this event took place.

Once these data are known, hypnosis allows associating fear reactions with positive ones, making the irrational fear of that object or situation gradually reduce until it disappears completely.

. Thanks to hypnosis, the negative associations that make the person suffering from panophobia continue to maintain that irrational and disproportionate fear of an animal, a situation, an object, etc. are broken.

Mindfulness or mindfulness

Mindfulness or mindfulness is a technique that is currently used on a regular basis for the treatment of panophonia. The main components of this strategy are to focus on the present moment, to focus on what is happening, eliminating the interpretation that each one can make of that fact, to accept the unpleasant as part of the experience and to give up direct control over what happens.

In this way, the person is taught to stop anticipating that something bad may be to come, because he focuses only on the present moment, on what is happening here and now.

It also tries to neutralize irrational fear because it accepts that a slight fear or anxiety in certain situations can be unpleasant but it accepts it. When the person learns to accept this unpleasant part of the experience, they do not reject it or fear it.

Drugs

Finally, medications are considered in the most severe cases of phobia and are used to control symptoms when they are excessively disabling.

They are effective in the short term and provide temporary relief but do not treat the underlying cause of the disorder. There are three types of medications used to treat panophobia.

Beta-blockers

On the one hand, the so-called beta-blockers, whose main function is to block the flow of adrenaline that appears in situations of fear or anxiety. In this way, physical symptoms such as excessive sweating or palpitations are controlled.

Benzodiazepines

Another type of medication that is used frequently are the so-called benzodiazepines that provide a certain level of sedation without being very high or dangerous for the health of the person.

They also work as muscle relaxants and their effect is immediate. On the contrary, they present a high risk of dependence in long treatments.

This requires a rational use of these drugs, assessing how long the drug treatment will take, depending on the diagnosis and expected prognosis, and if the benefits resulting from this treatment outweigh the risks assumed.

Antidepressants

And lastly, the use of antidepressants can be helpful when feelings of fear are especially severe and debilitating. In any case, medical treatment must be controlled and supervised by a specialist in addition to not being a single treatment, since it will always be combined with psychological therapy to solve the fear from its origin.

Bibliography

1. Olesen, J. Fear of Everything Phobia. The ultimate list of phobias and fears.
2. Maharjan, R. Panophobia: Fear of Everything- Causes, Symptoms and Treatment. Healthtopia
3. Crocq, M. (2015) A history of anxiety: from Hippocrates to DSM. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience.
4. Panophonia can always be overcome. CTRN: Change that`s right now.
5. Dryden-Edwards, R. (2016) Phobias. Medicinenet.
6. Preda, A. (2014) Phobic Disorders Treatment & Management. Medscape.
7. Carbonell, D. (2016). Exposure therapy for fears and phobias. Anxiety coach.