Adolescents are a complex people, which can be difficult to find an approach. But there are people who not only do not know how to communicate and interact with teenagers, but are also panicky afraid of them. And this is a mental disorder called ephebiphobia.
Description
Ephephyphobia is so called from the merger of two Greek words (ἔφηβος - "youth" and φόβος - "fear"). This phobia is social, rather rare, it manifests itself in fear of adolescents on the verge of disgust for them.
For a long time, the existence of such fear was denied by specialists, and only in 1994 the term was formulated and the signs of the disease described, which were attributed to anxious generalized mental disorders.
In itself, fear of people of a certain age group does not appear, it is always preceded by some tragic or dramatic events, the main characters of which were teenagers. Despite the apparent complexity of this disorder, it is quite easy to treat and correct.
Origin of fear
The factors that led to the development of an irrational, uncontrolled fear of adolescents usually lie in the past of a person. The most common cause is traumatic collision with an aggressive group of teenagersthat have caused harm to a person or have exerted severe moral pressure. It should be noted that phobias are more susceptible to adults than adolescents or children.
Some psychiatrists call this fear occupational disease of teachers, educators, trainers, and at risk are mainly people over 45 years old.
The psychological premises of this fear are unpleasant experience with teenage deviant behavior, aggression, cruelty, ridicule.For example, an adult was attacked by juvenile delinquents, beaten and robbed by a group of teenagers, or he was the victim of dirty and cynical public ridicule.
Social factors predisposing to the development of ephebiphobia are stereotypes. Often adolescents (indiscriminately) are called unbalanced, aggressive, dangerous. And people who are quite suspicious, anxious, easily influenced from outside, these statements alone will be enough to begin to feel fear of young men and women.
The reason for this may be watching a movie, issuing news, reading a book about teenage groups that commit atrocities. Recently, the world has been stirred by a wave of ephebiphobia, experts associate an increase in the number of cases of a rather rare disorder with media reports about teenagers who bring knives and firearms to schools, shoot classmates, teachers, and passers-by.
Noticed that not every person can become an ephebifob. Much depends on the characteristics of the psyche and fundamental character traits.
So, prone to depression, indecisive people, suffering from a complex of guilt, doubters and suspicious, are more prone to mental disturbance.
Symptomatology
Signs of teenage fear are consistent with the underlying clinical picture of generalized anxiety disorder. Since it is not possible to avoid meetings with adolescents - people of this age can meet at any time in transport, on the street, and in the store, the ephebifobe is most often in mental stress, he is anxious, alert.
If he can avoid meeting with adolescents, he will do everything possible to do this, but if the meeting cannot be avoided, then usually not one teenager or two, but just groups of young people cause fear. They can be of a certain type, for example, adolescents with obvious signs of belonging to a certain group (music lovers or athletes), or they can be the most varied of types - it all depends on the characteristics of the traumatic experience experienced by the patient.
It should be noted that large groups of teenagers are terrifying and can cause a panic attack, however, a meeting with a single teenager can cause an increase in anxiety to one degree or another.
His fear affects the behavior of the ephebifob first. Since a person considers the main task to avoid clashes with people frightening him, he carefully avoids visiting any places where such meetings are even theoretically possible - stadiums during sports matches, clubs, discos, cinemas, schools. A person begins to lay his daily routes bypassing them, even if for this it will be required to spend several times longer on the way.
Ephebifobes do not watch films designed for a teenage audience. Such a movie causes a strong sense of anxiety, as well as teenage music, culture.
If a meeting with a group of teenagers did happen, a person experiences a strong fit of fear, sometimes bordering on panic. The heartbeat intensifies, pressure begins to jump, sweating increases, trembling in the hands occurs. It becomes difficult to swallow - it dries up in the mouth, a feeling of lack of air and a feeling of compression in the heart area may appear.
In severe cases, vomiting occurs, loss of consciousness occurs.
The behavior becomes illogical - a person can turn around in the middle of the street, seeing a group of teenagers, and run to the other side, or, conversely, freeze in place and cannot force himself to take a step. After an attack, a person can not get rid of feelings of anxiety, insomnia, fatigue for a long time. In a group of teenagers, the ephebifob sees a threat to his own life and health.
If such a person has his own children, then the anxiety is much stronger, because almost constantly he thinks about what will happen when his own child enters adolescence. At the same time, the parent from the ephebiphobus is despotic, strict, he holds the child "in the hedgehogs." This pressure, according to the patient, is his only chance to protect himself from possible teenage inadequacy in the future.
Unpleasant obsessive thoughts can appear at any time. But most often this happens in the evening, before bedtime.
Exactly because of this reason sleep disturbances develop, aggravation of anxiety disorder occurs. Mental disorder is progressing, and quite quickly. Exacerbations occur most often when a person is in a state of anxiety, depression after watching reports on teenage crimes and incidents involving teenagers who have been watched on television or seen on the Internet.
How to treat?
All self-help tips usually have no effect, because it is quite difficult for a person to find a reasonable explanation on his own, and even more so, he can not control the manifestations of his own fear. The psyche is rapidly depleted, and the ability to think critically is gradually lost. It means that first, a person understands the abnormality of his fear, and then the fear becomes automatic, and the understanding of its anomaly disappears.
Unsuccessful own attempts to fight ephebiphobia only affirm a person in the belief that he can do nothing. Concomitant mental illness may develop. Therefore, it is recommended that, at the initial stages of a phobia, consult a psychotherapist or psychiatrist for qualified assistance.
These specialists can identify the causes of fear and eliminate them. Gestalt therapy is considered a very effective method, sometimes the possibilities of hypnosis are used.
To eliminate incorrect settings that trigger the fear mechanism, use cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. This method allows you to deprive a frightening object of its frightening “charm”, and the fear becomes small, and gradually disappears altogether. A person at the final stage is recommended to smoothly enter the environment of adolescents - you can go in your free time as a volunteer to an animal shelter or to a search group (there are usually many teenagers who interact positively with adults).
The patient is advised to learn more about adolescents - to watch their films and sometimes listen to their music, to keep abreast of teenage news and idols. There are no tablets for ephebiphobia. But sometimes, if the doctor considers it necessary, prescribed as an adjunct in psychotherapy sedatives, sleeping pills, antidepressants.
A person is recommended to practice yoga. Meditation, massage, visiting the pool, mastering breathing exercises - all this helps to strengthen the state of the nervous system.
Highly recommended remember your own teenage years more often - watch photos in the album, tell loved ones stories from your teenage past, listen to their response stories. This will help to get closer to your own teenage child.
The effectiveness of the treatment is high. Up to 95% of cases of ephebiphobia were eliminated after 12-15 sessions of psychotherapy. The rest were successfully corrected by hypnotherapy and the method of neuro-linguistic programming. Therefore, forecasts are assessed as very favorable. But the patient is required to fully cooperate with the doctor, trust, sincerity and compliance with all recommendations.
See where phobias come from.
