Cherophobia (aversion To Happiness): Symptoms, Causes, Treatment
Cherophobia is a concept that can be shocking for many people, since its existence makes us question something that in theory we all seek: happiness. And cherophobia is the aversion to happiness, the rejection of those experiences or habits that we believe could lead us to be happy.
How can someone not want to strive towards happiness? What is the reason for this psychological phenomenon? Let’s see it in the following lines.
As we have seen previously in summary, cherophobia is the aversion to happiness, the tendency to avoid what we link to the fact of being happy.
Now, that doesn’t mean that people are afraid of the idea of happiness itself; They are able to think about the concept itself, but They want to get away from what makes them feel happy in a minimally stable and consistent way.
Causes
Human beings are capable of adopting an infinite number of lenses from which to perceive and value life, for better and worse. This makes there relatively rare cases in which some individuals adopt mentalities that seem far from common sense
As with most psychological phenomena, there is no single cause that leads us directly to cherophobia as a consequence. Instead, there are several possible causes that make it more or less likely that we will fall into this state of mind.
One of the causes that have been hypothesized for some of these cases has to do with the pressure that exists today when it comes to practically forcing everyone to be happy all the time, as if it were part of their job and their responsibilities. Feeling that link between happiness and obligations, in certain cases, can cause aversion
Another explanatory hypothesis for cherophobia is based on the idea that people who experience it are afraid of being happy at first and then seeing how all that happiness falls apart. The feeling of loss that would arise from this is anticipated and generates so much discomfort that the pretense of being happy is completely renounced, even avoiding falling into this state by chance.
Is aversion to happiness a problem?
As much as it may seem strange that happiness is avoided, it is possible to understand people who seek not to complicate their lives and maintain an austere philosophy of life. However, it must be taken into account that cherophobia It does not consist of humility or austerity values that in themselves are not negative and are in fact legitimate.
The characteristic of cherophobia is that the person makes active efforts to distance themselves from happiness, even if doing so has a high cost. These efforts significantly interfere with people’s quality of life, isolate them and make them less able to cope with day-to-day problems.
That is why cherophobia It is not another attitude of life towards which we must maintain a neutral attitude ; It is clearly a problem that makes people suffer.
Symptoms
Cherophobia is a complex phenomenon that is based on relatively abstract concepts, so it can manifest itself in different ways. However, It is possible to find some generalities in the symptoms of this problem
In general, those who experience cherophobia firsthand They maintain a conservative profile and are not very open to new experiences In a way related to the latter, they tend to be introverted, since personal relationships bring a certain instability and exposure to emotionally charged situations, something that goes against their intention to always remain more or less the same, far from personal experiences. intensely happy or pleasant.
On the other hand, meeting new people can lead us to seasons of calm and stability in a context of feeling fulfilled, something that could crack and generate a feeling of loss and grief Let us remember that those who feel an aversion to happiness do not want to be markedly unhappy, they simply seek to avoid suffering.
Treatment
Fortunately, cherophobia itself is neither depression nor a neurological disorder, so Psychological intervention should be able to make this form of discomfort subside until it almost disappears all in a relatively short period of time.
Generally, the aversion to happiness is related to clinging to poorly adaptive beliefs and an unhealthy lifestyle that generates psychological exhaustion. That’s why, cognitive restructuring can help as well as other forms of intervention in anxiety problems, such as exposure in controlled contexts to what is feared (in the most pronounced cases in which there are anxiety crises in the face of specific stimuli).
