Surely as a child they told you stories about the bogeyman or you have an acquaintance, friend or family member to whom they explained them. Maybe you know someone who is afraid of monsters or you yourself feel or felt an irrational fear of these beings when you were little. This fear is called bogyphobia.
In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about What is bogyphobia, its causes, symptoms and what is its treatment?. If you are interested in knowing in more detail what this fear of supernatural and imaginary beings consists of, keep reading!
What is bogyphobia
To understand what bogyphobia is, we must first go back to when we were boys and girls and they told us stories about the boogeyman, or the fear we had that there was a monster under the bed or inside the closet.
In English-speaking countries, the equivalent of the bogeyman (or the typical “bogeyman”) is the Bogeyman, from which the term bogiphobia comes. Thus, we can say that bogiphobia is the irrational fear of the boogeyman, or as other authors define it, the fear of supernatural and imaginary beings.
Causes of bogyphobia
Some boys and girls develop it due to the widespread habit of scaring them by telling them that some strange being will appear and take them away in case of not behaving well, for not wanting to go to bed or leaving food on the plate. Although this threat is increasingly out of use, we can still find people who use it and, therefore, enhance the appearance of bogyphobia.
Therefore, this phobia It is consolidated by bad learningwhere the boy or girl, faced with stimuli from supernatural and imaginary beings, immediately suffers intense anxiety.
Example of a complex case of bogyphobia
Let’s imagine a child whose parents always threaten him that if he doesn’t tidy up his room the boogeyman will come. This threat generates anxiety, palpitations and hyperventilation in the minor, so he fulfills his task to the point of developing bogiphobia.
In this case, the child keeps the room in excessive order to avoid the anxiety generated by being told that the boogeyman may come, to such an extent that there can never be anything that is not in its place. He never lets anyone leave anything out of his place, which leads him to develop an OCD with order, with the consequences that entails in the social and academic sphere.
This OCD becomes generalized and is no longer just in the child’s room, but affects all areas of the child’s life. When this child arrives for consultation, it is most likely that he will not remember where this compulsion for order comes from and the treatment will be much more complex.
Symptoms of bogyphobia
How do I know if I have bogyphobia? Below, we show you the main symptoms of bogyphobia:
- Negative references to the “bogeyman” or supernatural and imaginary beings.
- Excessive avoidance and escape of these stimuli.
- Hyperventilation and palpitations.
- intense anxiety in the face of erroneous estimates of threat, that is, in the face of the meanings attributed to the stimulus and the evoked fear response. Discover different ones.
- Appearance of others disorders derived of this phobia.
Treatment of bogyphobia
If you think you might suffer from bogiphobia and notice that this is interfering with your daily life and causing you discomfort, It is important that you go to a psychologist who can do the relevant tests and carry out the treatment that best suits your case.
That being said, the key to curing bogyphobia is repeated exposure to the stimulus specifically feared, such as the thought of the possibility of the boogeyman appearing, and the generation of new learning in which the feared stimulus becomes innocuous.
Cognitive behavioral therapies
Other techniques that work are those of the cognitive behavioral stream from psychology: narrative therapy and eye movement processing and desensitization (EMDR).
As always, choosing the most appropriate treatment will depend on many factors, personal, social, and environmental, but, whatever the type of treatment chosen, to cure bogyphobia it will be necessary:
- That the therapist has knowledge of the conceptual model that he applies.
- That a good therapeutic relationship has been established.
- That a consistent logic of the treatment is transmitted.
- That the different modalities of exhibition are implemented effectively.
Exposure therapy
According to Wolpe, systematic desensitization works by counterconditioning, that is, by associate or generate an opposite responsesuch as relaxation, which would be generated initially, as fear, and anxiety.
This is the most used by specialists and is based on Maurer’s two-factor theory and the habituation and extinction models. Its effectiveness in curing bogyphobia lies in preventing avoidance from becoming a safety signal. This therapy can be carried out in several ways:
- Live (gradual or inversive): exposing yourself directly to the situation that generates irrational fear with the boogeyman
- symbolic: through associated visual or auditory stimuli or through virtual reality.
- In a group: thus increasing social support and motivation and adherence to therapy.
- Interoceptive: causing bodily sensations typical of the moment fear appears, such as hyperventilation.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Bogyphobia (fear of the supernatural): what it is, causes, symptoms and treatmentwe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- American psychiatric association, (2014). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5. Madrid Spain. Pan-American medical publishing house.
- Echeburúa, E., de Corral, P., and Ortiz, C. (2008). Systematic desensitization. To FJ Labrador, Behavior Modification Techniques (Chap. 10, p. 261-286). Madrid. Pyramid.
- Jiménez, D., Gago, MV, Paz, M., Enamorado, V. (2014). Mythical spaces: True stories, literary stories. Alacalá de henares. The Garden of the Voice. Library of Oral Literature and Popular Culture.
- Labrador, F. J: and Crespo, M. (2008). Systematic desensitization. To FJ Labrador, Behavior Modification Techniques (Chap. 9, p. 243-260). Madrid. Pyramid.
- Ruiz, N. (2021). The sublime and the uncontrollable. Nature in catastrophic cinema. University of Seville, 273-287.