Gymnophobia (fear Of Nudity): Causes, Symptoms And Treatment
The nudity of the human body has been the subject of ethical and moral debates for centuries While some people consider it as a natural state of the person, others perceive a naked human body as something ordinary or vulgar, which should not be exposed to the view of other people.
When this aversion to the perception of a naked person goes beyond feelings of loathing or hatred and becomes fear or exaggerated fear, we may find ourselves facing a case of gymnophobia.
Gymnophobia, also known as knotophobia, is a type of specific phobia categorized within the classification of anxiety disorders In the case of this specific phobia, the person experiences a pathological fear of nudity, both their own and that of others.
This fear, which is experienced as an exaggerated, persistent and irrational sensation, occurs in those who feel a pathological aversion to the possibility of being seen naked or seeing other people, even within those contexts in which nudity is something natural and acceptable, such as a gym locker room.
One of the most distinctive characteristics of people with gymnophobia is that, in certain cases, the anxiety response does not appear generally with all people, but is restricted to a small group of the population.
In the same way, through the case study, it has been confirmed that In many gymnophobia patients there is a feeling of inferiority with respect to their own body which remains underlying the development of the phobia.
These people tend to compare their bodies with those that appear in the media and publications, in which the ideals or canons of beauty are so extremely distorted that some natural human traits are seen as imperfections, which leads to the person to experience high levels of distress and frustration.
This pathological terror of seeing a naked body, including one’s own, can cause great interference in the most intimate levels of the person, who may refuse to maintain physical or sexual contact, due to the anxiety caused by the idea of having than being naked in front of someone and that other someone being in the same state of nakedness.
In the same way, a gymnophobe will avoid encountering situations that involve having to take off their clothes, such as showering in a locker room with more people or even going to certain medical check-ups.
Characteristics of a phobic fear
As mentioned above, gymnophobia is an anxiety disorder, so the fear experienced in it is substantially different from a normative or adaptive fear.
The main characteristics that distinguish a pathological fear from a fear considered normal are:
Symptoms of fear of nudity
Although the main symptom of gymnophobia is the experience of great fear at the appearance of the feared stimulus, in this case nudity, There are many other symptoms typical of the anxiety reaction that the person experiences
These symptoms do not have to appear in the same way in all people with gymnophobia. However, these symptoms can be classified into three different categories, depending on whether they correspond to physical, cognitive or behavioral symptoms.
The first symptoms that the person consciously perceives when facing the phobic stimulus are the physical symptoms. These are due to hyperactivity of the nervous system which causes all kinds of changes and alterations in the body:
2. Cognitive symptoms
The physical symptoms of gymnophobia are always accompanied, in turn, by a series of cognitive symptoms that manifest themselves through distorted and irrational thoughts about human nudity.
These ideas are characterized by being irrational and intrusive and, in addition, they can be accompanied by mental images of catastrophic content in relation to the possible dangers or threats of the phobic stimulus.
3. Behavioral symptoms
As is often the case with specific phobias, the symptoms themselves end up interfering or conditioning the person’s own behavioral patterns These tend to alter the way in which it behaves in daily life, generating two types of responses considered as behavioral symptoms: avoidant behaviors and escape behaviors.
By avoidant behaviors we understand all those behaviors that the person with gymnophobia carries out with the aim of avoiding the feared situation or stimulus. Such as avoiding entering the locker rooms of a gym.
However, escape behaviors originate when the subject has not been able to confront the object of phobia, so they carry out all possible acts or behaviors that allow them to escape from the situation as soon as possible.
Causes
At the beginning of the article it was commented that the basis of gymnophobia may be related to a feeling of inferiority towards one’s own body, which has been enhanced or developed to become a phobia.
However, there are many other factors that can play a special role in developing a phobia, the most common being experimentation or highly traumatic experiences or experiences with a high emotional content, in which nudity played a more or less relevant role. .
Although it can sometimes be difficult to determine the specific origin of a phobia, there are a series of mechanisms or risk factors that can favor it. These are:
Treatment
Fortunately, There are a series of very effective treatments that, regardless of the severity in which the phobia occurs can help reduce the person’s symptoms and allow them to lead a normal pace and lifestyle.
In the case of gymnophobia, and any type of specific phobia, the most successful type of intervention is cognitive behavioral therapy; in which, in addition to cognitive restructuring to eliminate distorted thoughts, in vivo exposure or systematic desensitization (SD) techniques are carried out.
In this type of techniques, the patient is gradually exposed to situations related to the phobia, either directly or through imagination. Along with this, training is carried out in relaxation techniques that reduce the level of physical symptoms of anxiety.
