How Has The Pandemic Affected Us Through Travel Phobia?
Our most irrational fears do not arise out of nowhere, but rather have their origin, in most cases, in our interaction with the rest of the world, and especially with the rest of society.
That is why experiences as emotionally complicated as the coronavirus pandemic have led some people to internalize a series of intense fears that are a sequel to that experience. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, the phobia of traveling, also called hodophobia, may be one of the ways that these psychological alterations leave ; Let’s see why.
Specific phobias are one of the most prevalent disorders in today’s modern societies, and constitute a great source of discomfort both for those who suffer from them and for those around them.
There are many types of phobia associated with various specific triggers, and some of the most common are phobias of certain animals, needles, open spaces or traveling. When the person comes into contact with stimuli that make them feel close to those phobic elements, they suffer a sudden rise in their anxiety levels, to the point of having problems not losing control of what they do.
Hodophobia or travel phobia is a phobia associated with an a priori positive concept such as the act of traveling, but that It generates great discomfort both emotionally and physically or cognitively in people who suffer from it.
Thus, hodophobia or travel phobia is the irrational fear of participating in any trip away from our home with any means of transportation enabled for this purpose, mainly by plane, train, car or boat.
Of course, it should not be confused with airplane phobia, based on the specific fear of suffering an accident inside these means of transportation. What is scary about hodophobia is the experience of leaving the region that is familiar to us to which we have become accustomed and/or that is part of the place where people with our ethnic or cultural background live.
This phobia manifests itself with a high level of fear, anguish, panic or anxiety at the idea of having to take a trip of any nature and obviously during the time it lasts, due to a series of very diverse reasons for a person. to another.
Some of the reasons that can cause this irrational fear may be the anxiety of having to leave the comfort and security of home, as well as the fact of having to face an unknown situation that we do not control.
Causes of travel phobia
Although each person experiences this condition differently due to their own particularities, there are a series of more or less frequent causes that can explain the appearance of travel phobia. They are the following.
1. Traumatic experiences
As in most phobias that exist, the phobia of traveling It can be triggered by a traumatic experience experienced in the past or specifically in childhood.
These types of experiences leave such a large emotional mark on the person that it can generate consequences due to the way in which that experience is “saved” in memory. Due to this, the concept of what reminds us of that traumatic experience is easily activated by all the stimuli that are related to that experience, and a response based on anxiety is produced in us.
The traumatizing experience that the person has experienced can be of many types, among the most common may be: having been lost while traveling, having suffered a kidnapping or robbery, having witnessed an attack, having experienced a plane crash, or simply having had a very bumpy trip at some point in life.
On some occasions, this type of phobia can appear without there being a clear trigger in the form of a specific event, but due to a series of circumstances together with a biological predisposition to suffer anxiety, this type of disorder arises.
And it is that There are those who are more likely to suffer abnormally high levels of anxiety in situations that do not pose a real danger something that may be due to genetics or an alteration that occurred in the early stages of development and that has conditioned the functioning of the nervous system.
3. Ignorance
Simply not knowing how something works or what to expect from an experience (for example, going to another country) can give rise to an irrational fear based on problems for manage that uncertainty. And once you have learned to fear something, it is easy for that vicious circle to continue reinforcing itself.
For example, in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, it may be that someone who had never traveled or had traveled very little may have “come into contact” with the concept of traveling mainly through the alarmist messages broadcast for months about the risk of contagion that came to mean going to another country for a few days, so that this union of concepts, that of traveling and that of being in danger, become very united when trying to go on tourism far away after the stage of the COVID-19 crisis. 19.
The influence of the pandemic through travel phobia
Travel phobia is a relatively uncommon disorder, but where it is present it can be a very significant problem. For example, in those who maintain a long-distance relationship or must go to other countries with certain frequency for work.
In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, all the necessary circumstances have occurred for cases of this disorder to increase. On the one hand, emphasis has been placed on all the implications that traveling has for our immune system; If in previous decades we hardly thought about it, this pandemic has reminded us that the transmission of diseases is a real risk in a very globalized society, and that when we go to a distant place, we are somewhat more exposed to suffering serious cases because our body has not been “trained” to fight these pathogens.
On the other hand, the pandemic has led us to see the act of traveling as something exceptional, something that is not part of the lives of the majority and that is not as anodyne as going to work, for example; There is a qualitative difference between moving around the areas we know and going to another country. This predisposes us to see the trip as the action that consists of leaving what is familiar to us; No matter how much in our destination we find multinationals and places similar to those of our place of origin, that is still a mirage; We really know very little about that place and we need constant help to move around it. And furthermore, we do not have the same social support network as in our country, due to barriers such as language, lack of knowledge about how the administration works, etc.
What can we do about these fears?
Luckily, this and all other phobias can be treated and overcome effectively with professional psychotherapeutic support. In just a few months of regular therapy sessions it is possible to see how this problematic fear fades.
If you are interested in starting a treatment of this type, contact me.
