What is phylophobia and how to get rid of it?

Being in love is a normal condition for a person. It mobilizes the psyche and the body as a whole, pushes to great acts and accomplishments. Falling in love is a condition that begins in a person even before he reaches the age of puberty. And after the children become adults, the opportunity to fall in love helps them create their own families, give birth to children, and feel happiness. But not everyone can afford to fall in love so easily. People suffering from phylophobia do not agree to experience such feelings for any good.

Philophobia is a fairly widespread problem. This is a mental disorder that manifests itself. in pathological fear of falling in love. This fear is very complex and multifaceted, it can be a temporary disorder that happened after a hard personal experience of falling in love, or it can be a chronic disorder.

In any case, the phylophobe needs help, otherwise he risks living a life alone, experiencing panic fear every time potential partners, attractive and interesting people who could make the phylophobe a perfect couple meet on his way.

The disorder is not so called accidentally: phileo in Greek means "to love." The definition is included in the list of mental disorders provided by the International Classifier of Diseases ICD-10 under the code 40.2 - phobic disorders. The name of this phobia speaks for itself. Fear can settle in everyone; both young men and women, as well as adult men and women, suffer from it. Moreover, in women, the problem is somewhat more common than in men.Fear is formed, as a rule, on the basis of a person’s personal experience or in childhood, when perception becomes acute, in the so-called sensitive periods.

Elements of phylophobia can occur in everyone who has suffered a love loss - leaving a partner, adultery, betrayal, death. But such feelings are temporary, and gradually the fear of a new love falls back, a person becomes ready for a new relationship. If true phylophobia develops, most likely there will be no new relationship.

Often, phylophobes begin to abuse alcohol and drugs to “crush” their internal fear and conflict. (in a person, the fear of falling in love fights the natural need for relationships with the opposite sex). Alcohol and psychoactive substances will temporarily give relief, at least until they become addicted.

Love is a feeling of amazing strength and effect that can lift a person to the seventh heaven from happiness or make it the most miserable in the world by subjective sensations. There is nothing surprising in the fact that it is love that is also the cause of the development of philophobia. Fear of falling in love as such can be experienced by people of different ages - from adolescents to senior citizens.

Psychiatrists say that in many ways the type of family relationship that a child observes in childhood affects the likelihood of such a mental disorder. Up to 95% of cases of philophobia, as it turned out, have their roots precisely in childhood and adolescence.

Most often, the child creates prerequisites for this phobia due to scandals in the family, difficult relationships between parents. At the same time, female phylophobia is usually laid in a situation where the father acts as a tyrant, a tormentor. The child sees how the mother suffers, and does not want the same fate for herself, identifying the relationship of the parents with the concept of "love."

A male phobia is laid if the mother acts as a despot, and the father suffers humiliation, bullying. In this case, the boy also forms a misconception about women in general and, in adulthood, tries to avoid falling in love, to prevent serious relationships. In any case, phylophobia acts as a protective mechanism, so the brain tries to protect a person from situations that are perceived by him as dangerous.

A sense of danger - this is what the child experienced every time he witnesses another scandal of his parents. The psychology of a person with such a phobic disorder quite accurately gives him answers to all internal questions. Closeness, love, marriage, family for him are the territory of hostilities, the presence of which is associated with pain and suffering. To prevent this, a man or woman tries not to fall in love.

But this decision is not conscious. So decided the brain, which built as a preventive measure a strong, sometimes panic fear that a person experiences every time as soon as it occurs to him to fall in love.

The cause of phylophobia in a girl may be the installation inherited from a single mother that “all men are scum, they only need one”. The same erroneous appraisal biased judgments (but only against women) are sometimes passed on to single sons by sons.

Negative personal experience is considered to be a fairly common cause of phylophobia, usually it occurs in adolescence and youth. In this case, the fear of the prospect of falling in love develops under the influence of ridicule from peers.Surely there was a dramatic and inseparable first love, an extremely negative first sexual experience or the loss of a loved one.

If a young man or girl grows under a hail of ridicule, then they are usually confident that they are unattractive and cannot deserve reciprocal feelings in principle. In this case, the protective mechanism is formed as a preventive measure - if you do not want to be rejected, then there is nothing to fall in love with. The same psychoemotional shield is created by the phylophobes who survived the unrequited first love.

If a loved one dies or goes to another (another) - this is the strongest stimulating reason for the development of phobia in a teenager. It is much easier for an adult to accept any type of such loss than for a teenager for whom a whole world can be concluded in one object of love. Mental pain makes a person close his inner world for romantic experiences - this is also protection, but already from the pain, which is also possible in new relationships.

Fear of falling in love manifests itself at various levels. You can easily identify a phylophobe, but changing it yourself or trying to build a close relationship with him without the help of a psychotherapist or psychiatrist will fail.

Symptoms are manifested both in the emotional sphere and in behavior. Philophobe himself is well aware that he has a pathological fear of building a new relationship with the opposite sex. He admits this, does not refuse it, and can easily argue why this is so, what reasons he has for such behavior. And while there are no potential romantic partners on the horizon, he is quite calm, but sometimes acute symptoms cannot be avoided when faced with potential love.

Philophobia almost always affects the character of a person. It is changing, it is becoming more nasty, the person himself is rather selfish, he does everything possible so that others do not even have the thought of drawing closer to him as a possible life partner. In severe cases, the phylophobe has panic attacks every timewhen he meets a person who is as close as possible to the ideal image that exists in the consciousness of each of us. At the same time, male and female phobias have different manifestations.

They are prone to short-term affair, one-night meetings to satisfy natural sexual needs. They often change partners, do it easily and naturally. And it may seem that they "have nothing sacred." But this is not so. Just for a person, such behavior is an option of protection against the possible danger that serious love can carry.

If one of these fleeting partners decides to drag the phylophobe down the aisle or just gives a hint of a long relationship, the patient may show numerous signs of a phobic disorder - the heartbeat becomes quicker, there is a strong feeling of anxiety, and sometimes hopelessness, there is a feeling of lack of air, nausea, aversion to situation in general, I want to run away as quickly as possible and as far as possible.

Philophobes should not be confused with intimophobes and asexuals. They have everything in order with intimate desires and their realization, they are not afraid of the representatives of the opposite sex themselves. But they only experience sexual attraction for them and nothing more. Philophobic men can honestly answer if they are asked what exactly they are most afraid of. Most point out that they are kept from falling in love by fear of losing personal freedom, becoming dependent on the actions and moods of another person, fear of being responsible not only for themselves, fear of being betrayed.

Often driven by a philophobia fear of being financially untenable to feed a family (often in childhood, the boy watched his mother humiliate his father for not earning much). Philophobic men look a bit messy, they don’t attach importance to the little things in their wardrobe, they neglect the rules - for example, they don’t shave. They love to be in unfamiliar companies, because no one will ask uncomfortable questions about their personal lives in them. People with such a mental disorder can often be found in nightclubs.

The fair sex with such a mental disorder behave almost the same. They can flirt, it does not cause discomfort. But the prospect of a long lasting relationship is terrifying. Sometimes women even adhere to avoidance behavior - try not to get acquainted with men, so as not to inadvertently fall in love (This symptom is characteristic of severe forms of phylophobia).

If a fan begins to take the initiative, insists on a serious relationship, the woman is horrified, she is frightened, she becomes aggressive, nervous, in a state of anxiety and tries to end any communication with this man by any means.

Often, phylophobia in women is accompanied by a reluctance to have children. This is not about infertility or temporary financial and other difficulties, but specifically about “childfree” - the ideological belief in the benefits of childlessness. If a woman with such a disorder still decides on a child, then she prefers to raise him alone, knowingly refusing to get married and raise a baby with her partner.

Keep in mind that most people with this fear can control their emotions so as not to fall in love. But they cannot control the manifestations of horror in the event of a collision with a traumatic situation. They temporarily lose their sense of reality, the whole world around turns into one continuous horror, trembling hands, a pulse quickens, breathing becomes frequent. In severe cases, a person may lose consciousness.

You can start relationships with philophobes only by their rules. More precisely, according to the rules of their mental disorder. To talk about something else, you must first help a person get rid of his fear. This can be done by a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, who will identify the degree of disorder with special tests and prescribe adequate therapy. For testing, use the classic anxiety scale and specific tests, which include questions related to feelings after sexual intimacy, to it, as well as questions about the degree of confidence.

A course of psychotherapeutic assistance is almost always necessary. Only mild forms of phylophobia in the initial stages can be eliminated by relaxation and increased confidence in people of the opposite sex. If fear is present for more than six months, you can not do without the help of a specialist. The doctor will help establish and work out the true causes of fear, raise childhood memories, and provide an opportunity to look at them in a new, adult way.

In some cases, medications also help get rid of phylophobia, but they are not prescribed separately, but during the course of psychotherapy, and only if the person already has concomitant mental disorders, such as depression or neurosis. In this case, medications play a symptomatic role - for depression, for example, they take anidepressants.

As ancillary methods that are designed to teach a person to relax, apply acupuncture, massage, electric sleep. The patient is strongly encouraged to watch touching love films with a happy ending, as well as read the same books. A course of treatment is considered a successful treatment option, after which the patient manages to go on a gradual, smooth approach with a partner.

For partners, doctors have their own recommendations - as they recover, they should talk more often with the former philophobe about the personal, and also show maximum sensitivity, attention and care.