If every time there is a storm you are afraid to go outside or you startle when you hear thunder, you may have brontophobia. Brontophobia is the fear of thunder and lightning, that is, storms. Why is a person afraid of storms? Can that affect your life a lot? How do you get rid of the fear of storms?
If you want to know what they are Symptoms, causes and treatment of brontophobiacontinue reading Psychology-Online.
What is brontophobia?
This word would come from the Greek “bronte” which means “thunder” and “phobos” which means “fear.” Therefore, brontophobia is a irrational fear of thunder and lightning. It is sometimes known as , although this fear focuses more on being struck by lightning, while in brontophobia it is generally the fear of thunder and lightning and its consequences, such as fire, and not only to the fact of being struck directly by lightning. It is usually common during childhood but, in some cases, it lasts until adulthood. It is part of those known as specific phobias, that is, there is an irrational fear of a specific situation or stimuli. Specific phobias are a .
This fear begins when a storm is anticipated, for example, when listening to the weather forecast or seeing the cloudy sky, and in the person who suffers from the fear, various physical, behavioral and psychological symptoms begin to emerge that end up affecting the person’s well-being. . Below we will see specifically all the symptoms of brontophobia.
Symptoms of brotnophobia
The typical symptoms of brotnophobia can be separated into 3 categories:
- Physical/physiological symptoms: dizziness, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, sweating, gastrointestinal problems, muscle tension…
- Cognitive symptoms: These refer to thoughts and emotions. They are usually irrational ideas about the danger to one’s life due to a storm, which leads to emotions of fear, anxiety, among others.
- Behavioral symptoms: person avoid the places that cause him terror. For example, if he sees that there is going to be a storm, he will not leave the house, he will even stop going to work to avoid it. In the case of children, it is quite common for them to hide under a bed or a table in order to feel safer.
In some cases it can develop because the person may stop feeling safe every time they go out, so they choose to stay at home.
Causes of brotnophobia
If you have the symptoms of brotnophobia described above, it is normal for you to ask yourself “why am I afraid of storms?” Brontophobia is multi-caused, that is, it is caused by a set of factors:
- The causes may be due to having experienced a negative experience related to a storm or hearing that someone close has experienced such an event. These situations can be, for example, car accidents, electrical problems, etc.
- The fact that during childhood people received constant storm danger messages It can also end up causing the development of this type of phobias.
- Likewise, receive messages from catastrophic events related to a storm can make the person end up fearing that situation in the future.
- On the other hand, like most psychological disorders, it is more likely to develop in people with biological tendency to anxiety.
Brontophobia treatment
Acceptance and commitment therapy are the ones that can help the most to resolve these types of problems.
- Cognitive restructuring. In order to resolve the cognitive symptoms, irrational ideas related to fear would be worked on and new, more rational thoughts in line with reality would be implanted in the person’s mind. To do this, techniques such as Socratic dialogue can be used.
- Relaxation. On a physical level, training would be done to reduce these types of symptoms. By reducing the level of activation, it will be easier for the person to analyze the situation in a more rational and less emotional way. At the end of the article you will find a guided relaxation video.
- Live exhibition. At a behavioral level, the person would be gradually exposed to what he fears. To do this, first of all a list would be made with the different levels of fears related to the phobia. For example, what could scare you the least related to the phobia is imagining a storm and what could scare you the most is being on the street when there is a storm. The person would be exposed first to the situation that causes the least. This exposure will last until the anxiety completely disappears. It is important because if the person cuts off the exposure before (whether literally – leaving the situation – or imaginary – thinking about something else to distract themselves -), the next time they are exposed to that same situation the level of anxiety would be elderly.
- Exhibition in imagination or virtual reality. Since the weather cannot be controlled, another option in addition to imagined exposure is the use of virtual reality so that the person is exposed to their fear in the most real and direct way possible. One problem with imagined exposure (imagining the feared situation) is that it depends on the person’s imaginative capacity.
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.
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Bibliography
- Felipe, VJ, Trosso, P., Sebastian, C., Russo, NA, & Soria Levy, J. (2012). Levels of panic and brontophobia caused by natural disasters. In IV International Congress of Research and Professional Practice in Psychology XIX Research Conferences VIII Meeting of MERCOSUR Psychology Researchers. Faculty of Psychology-University of Buenos Aires.
- Vásquez Ávila, AE, & Jaramillo Jerves, JP (2018). Treatment of phobias through the use of virtual reality in Cuenca (Bachelor’s thesis).