Coprophobia, also known as schatophobia, is a specific phobia whose sufferers manifest an irrational and unjustified fear of excrement. Patients with this rare disorder suffer high levels of anxiety when faced with stool. In this way, they try to avoid seeing or sensing excrement whenever they can.
Although it is a rare discomfort, those affected by coprophobia may see their daily lives altered and suffer discomfort that requires psychological treatment. In this summary we will review what coprophobia consists of, its most common causes, its symptoms and signs, and different types of interventions that can help manage it.
What is coprophobia?
Coprophobia is an anxiety disorder It is an unusual specific phobia that requires health and/or psychological intervention in most cases.
These subjects feel an extreme aversion towards feces, appearing an unusual and exaggerated fear of excrement. This fear may be based on certain beliefs or irrational thoughts and generate great anxiety.
Characteristics and diagnosis
Not all fears or rejection of feces can be labeled with the diagnosis of coprophobia. In fact, for the diagnosis to be reliable, it will be essential that certain symptoms and specific characteristics exist. They are the following.
1. Exaggerated fear
The fear of feces experienced by those affected by coprophobia is clearly excessive in its intensity and in terms of the discomfort it generates This means that, when exposed to excrement, their mind reacts with acute symptoms of anxiety and nervousness.
Excrement does not pose a real threat to human beings, but individuals affected by coprophobia have distorted cognitions and perceive them as highly threatening or dangerous.
2. Irrational thoughts
The fear generated by coprophobia is high intensity and exaggerated because it is not based on rational thoughts. These distorted cognitions generate anxiety in the face of a false threat
Distorted and unrealistic ideas about the potential danger of feces are the cause of the discomfort expressed by the affected subject.
3. Uncontrollable fear
Another characteristic symptom of coprophobia is that the fear is uncontrollable That is, the affected individual does not have any resources to manage the emergence of negative sensations, as well as unwanted anxiety responses.
4. Persistent fear
Fear is also characterized by being prolonged over time, that is, persistent It is not a fear that arises in isolation or punctually, at some specific stage or after a specific experience.
Thus, the phobic fear of feces may not be resolved if psychological measures are not taken and clinical intervention is performed on the patient.
5. Avoidance
Finally, the phobic fear of excrement generates the main behavior of this phobia: avoidance. Subjects with this phobia try to avoid exposure to feces as much as possible, even escaping suddenly to avoid such contact.
Symptoms Coprophobia is an anxiety disorder, since its symptoms are mainly those of an anxious patient.
The expressions that coprophobia has in the behavior and mind of the affected person can be of three types: cognitive symptoms, physical symptoms and behavioral symptoms.
1. Physical symptoms
The fear suffered by people with coprophobia generates the emergence of a long list of alterations in the correct functioning of their body when the affected person is exposed to excrement.
This alteration is caused by an imbalance in the normal activity of the autonomic nervous system. This increase can lead to a series of signs of anxiety like the following:
2. Cognitive symptoms
In addition to physical signs, coprophobia also produces a series of cognitive alterations These are based on irrational ideas and thoughts about the discomfort and threat posed by excrement.
These thoughts arise with greater strength and intensity when the affected person is exposed to the phobic element. Furthermore, physical symptoms feed back and encourage the anxiety produced by the phobic stimulus.
3. Behavioral symptoms
Finally, Coprophobia also presents several behavioral or behavioral symptoms These manifestations arise in response to physical and cognitive symptoms, due to the increase in anxiety and general discomfort suffered by the affected person.
The most common behaviors in this disorder are avoidance and flight. Avoidance is defined as that series of behaviors that the patient does in order not to come into contact with excrement. On the other hand, flight is the behavior that occurs when the individual cannot avoid coming into contact with feces and instinctively moves away from the phobic stimulus.
Causes
Coprophobia is a phobia that can be due to different causes and factors that can be considered risk.
The propensity to suffer from anxiety, vicarious conditioning, verbal conditioning, certain personality traits or genetic risk factors put a person at greater risk of developing this phobic disorder.
Treatment
The best treatment for this type of phobias is psychological therapy Specifically, cognitive-behavioral therapy has proven to be highly effective in controlling symptoms and returning the subject to normality.
This therapy is based on progressive exposure to the phobic stimulus. Slowly, the patient gets closer (throughout the therapy sessions) and gets used to the stool and learns to manage his anxiety and the discomfort he feels.