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Fear of the dark is a common fear or phobia among toddlers, children and, to a varying degree, adults. A fear of the dark does not always concern darkness itself; it can also be a fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by darkness. Most toddlers and children outgrow it, but this fear persists for some as a phobia and anxiety.
The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe (from Greek φόβος phobos, "fear") occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, abnormal, unwarranted, persistent, or disabling fear as a mental disorder (e.g. agoraphobia), in chemistry to describe chemical aversions (e.g. hydrophobic), in biology to describe organisms that dislike certain conditions (e.g ...
Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, ... Including the fear of small confined spaces (claustrophobia), or the dark (nyctophobia).
Phobias have a long history. The concept of social phobias was referred to as long ago as 400 B.C. One of the first references to scopophobia was by Hippocrates who commented on an overly-shy individual, explaining that such a person "loves darkness as light" and "thinks every man observes him.” [18]
Thalassophobia (from Ancient Greek θάλασσα (thálassa) 'sea' and φόβος (phóbos) 'fear') [1] is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean, seas, or lakes.
The word phobia may also refer to conditions other than true phobias. For example, the term hydrophobia is an old name for rabies, since an aversion to water is one of that disease's symptoms. A specific phobia to water is called aquaphobia instead. A hydrophobe is a chemical compound that repels water.
Spectrophobia (derived from Latin: spectrum, n. specio, an appearance, form, image of a thing; an apparition, spectre) or catoptrophobia (from Greek κάτοπτρον kátoptron, "mirror") is a kind of specific phobia involving an abnormal and persistent fear of mirrors, and an anxiety about seeing one's own face reflected in them. [1]
It is related to fear of the dark. The fear of ghosts is a very common fear. A persistent fear of ghosts is sometimes phasmophobia, a type of specific phobia. [1] [2] It derives from Greek φάσμα, phásma, meaning "apparition" and -φοβία, -phobía, meaning "fear". [3]