“It’s just that I turn red.” This famous phrase that you have surely heard from time to time, or perhaps you have said it yourself, a priori does not go beyond the simple fact of blushing. What happens if this is not the case and that feeling of turning red, whether in a specific situation or in any situation, makes you increasingly afraid to the point that you try to avoid blushing by any means?
You could end up avoiding all those situations that cause you to turn red, no matter what they are and the reason behind them. Normally it is a reaction that occurs due to interaction with other people, which could cause you to end up developing agoraphobia or a social phobia as a result of this erythrophobia. If you want to know more about it, in this Online Psychology article, we explain what erythrophobia: symptoms, causes and treatment.
What is erythrophobia
The term erythrophobia refers to excessive and irrational fear of blushing in front of others. Pierre Janet (1903) included the fear of blushing, or erythrophobia, within the group of phobias of social situations. This fear generates a feeling of overwhelm in the person every time his face turns red in public for some reason.
Symptoms of erythrophobia
People with erythrophobia show different clearly identifiable signs. Let’s see what the main symptoms of erythrophobia are:
- Redness of the face: especially of the cheeks, ears and neck and, on other occasions, other parts of the body disproportionately.
- Feeling of shame every time this redness appears visibly
- Sweating.
- Palpitations.
- Subjective feeling of heat in the affected area.
- Negative thoughts about blushing. In this article, we tell you.
- Avoidance of situations that cause visible redness of the skin.
- Feeling of suffering.
- There is interference in social development.
Symptoms of erythrophobia related to social anxiety disorder
The latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5) characterizes social anxiety disorder as a persistent and marked fear of different social situations or public performances for fear that they will be embarrassing.
In this version it is argued for the first time, unlike previous versions, that blushing is a physical response what constitutes a seal of social anxiety disorder, which does justice to a largely ignored symptom. Thus, the symptoms of social anxiety disorder related to erythrophobia are:
- Irrational fear of blushing that interferes with the functional capacity of the individual
- Exposure to being seen red-faced almost invariably causes a immediate anxiety response.
- The person recognizes that fear is excessive and irrational: a sign that would help us differentiate it from delusional ideas.
- The avoidance behaviors, anxious anticipation, or the discomfort caused by the situation significantly interferes in the life of the affected person. Social situations or actions are avoided or experienced with great anxiety.
- persistent fear by one or more social situations or public performances in which the subject is exposed to people who do not belong to the family environment. That is, he is exposed to the judgment of others.
- Exposure to the social situation almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response due to the fear of blushing.
If you are not sure if you suffer from this disorder, we recommend this one.
Causes of erythrophobia
The cause is not only a stressor or an experience, but we will always keep in mind the interaction between genetics and environment. The individual who suffers from erythrophobia surely has a generalized biological vulnerability which, together with the stress that will create a sensation of false alarm, which will end up becoming a learned alarm, will generate a psychological vulnerability.
This vulnerability is influenced by learning, whether directly or vicariously from other real alarms. This cycle gives rise to the appearance of anxiety disorders and phobias. Furthermore, the causes of erythrophobia also derive from ruminative thoughts as the following:
- What others thought of me.
- They’re going to notice that I’m turning red.
- I don’t want somatic symptoms to appear, such as palpitations, sweating, tachycardia, etc.
Treatment of erythrophobia
How to overcome erythrophobia? The treatment of the phobia of blushing has two or three specific methods that we will see below.
Task concentration training
This method for treating erythrophobia is based on the premise that people who blush pay more attention to themselves in social interaction, and little attention to the tasks they are performing, the people they are with at that moment, and to the environment.
Therapy is about encourage a change in the patient’s focus of attention, to move from an interoceptive focus of attention to external attention focused on the development of the interaction. This method consists of three phases:
- Become familiar with care processes and become aware of the negative effects of increased self-focused attention.
- Focus the attention out in non-threatening situationssuch as watching television, making a phone call, walking through a square or listening to the lyrics of a song.
- Focus the attention out in threatening situations.
Exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring
Another recognized treatment for erythrophobia is . Specifically, exposure therapy and the cognitive restructuring of the idea of: “what will people think of me.” The goal of this therapy is for the subject to normalize anxiety and blushing, and not that he suffers them. For this it will be important to change the patient’s perception.
Exposure therapy is based on Maurer’s two-factor theory and habituation/extinction models. Its effectiveness in treating erythrophobia lies in prevent avoidance from becoming a safety signal. In this article you will find more information about the.
For this specific disorder, the use of interoceptive exposure therapy is recommended, that is, therapy that provokes the bodily sensations typical of the moment the fear appears. To do this, it would be necessary to carry out exercises to provoke body sensations that can appear in social situations that would cause blushing. Next, we will see an organized proposal on how to do it:
- Provoke internal sensations in a controlled way through, for example, turning on the heat and dressing warmly, drinking hot liquids or doing intense exercise before entering the session. Although it is true that, when performing these exercises, they may not be well associated with the symptoms that appear in social situations, they are necessary and sufficient for a first approach at a therapeutic levelespecially when the degree of phobia is very high.
- Work in small groups so that the reactions that appear through social interaction can be more realistic. They could be done exercises such as eye contact kept the entire group to a single member, where no one can look away for a minute and, after five or six sessions, increase the time to two minutes. With this exercise, we try to generate a cognitive change. making the person see that the beliefs that cause the phobia are irrational
Why pharmacological treatment of erythrophobia should be avoided
In cases of erythrophobia, the use of psychotropic drugs while undergoing psychological therapy is not recommended, since these cause a decrease in anxiety symptomsmaking it not possible to appear in situations that cause anxiety, but not in a controlled manner either, so exposure therapy could not be performed.
Although, if it is necessary to administer them, beta blockers, selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and, especially, clonidine or other anticholinergics are prescribed. At the moment, The effectiveness of ibuprofen is being studied in the control of reddish coloration, since it reduces the formation of prostaglandins.
Finally, in those cases in which none of the therapies are effective, there is the possibility of performing the following surgical treatment: endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy.
How to control redness on the face
How to combat erythrophobia? To control redness on the face it would be advisable consult with a specialist that could determine the specific cause. If the cause is psychological, the solution would lie in reducing the thoughts that cause this reaction. In this article you will discover.
If the redness of the face has an endocrine cause or medical disease, the specific disease that causes it should be treated.
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 Erythrophobia (fear of turning red): symptoms, causes and treatmentwe recommend that you enter our category.
References
- American psychiatric association, (2014). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM – 5. Madrid, Spain. Pan-American medical publishing house.
Bibliography
- Belloch, A., Sandín, B., Ramos, F., (2009). Manual of psychopathology, volume II. Madrid. McGraw Hill / Interamericana de España, SAU
- Carlson, N. R. (2014). Physiology of behavior. Madrid. Pearson Education, S.A.
- Jadresic, E. (2016). Social blushing: a neuropsychiatric disorder? Medwave. doi:10.5867/medwave.2016.06.6490
- Labrador, FJ, (ed.) (2008). Behavior modification techniques. Madrid. Pyramid.