Gerascophobia is an abnormal or incessant fear of growing older or
ageing (
senescence).
Background
Gerascophobia is a
clinical phobia generally classified under
specific phobia
Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, unreasonable, and irrational fear associated with a specific object, situation, or concept which poses little or no actual danger. Specific phobia can lead to avoidance of the o ...
s or
fear
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...
s of a single specific panic trigger. Gerascophobia may be based on
anxieties of
being left alone without resources and incapable of caring for oneself due to age-caused disability.
Symptoms
Some sufferers seek
plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes cranio ...
to make them look more youthful,
[ ] while the main concern of others is a fear of internal,
biological long-term damage caused by the aging process.
Etymology
The term ''gerascophobia'' comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
γηράσκω, ''gerasko'', "I grow old" and φόβος, ''phobos'', "fear".
[''Perspectives on Aging'', by Priscilla W. Johnston, 1982, , pp. 239-241] Some authors refer to it as
gerontophobia
Gerontophobia is the fear of age-related self-degeneration (similar to Gerascophobia), or a hatred or fear of the elderly due to memento mori. The term comes from the Greek γέρων – ''gerōn'', "old man" and φόβος – ''phobos'', "fea ...
, although this may also refer to the fear of the elderly due to
memento mori.
[
]
See also
* Existential crisis
* Fountain of Youth
The Fountain of Youth is a mythical spring which allegedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. Tales of such a fountain have been recounted around the world for thousands of years, appearing in the writings of Herod ...
* List of phobias
The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe (from Greek φόβος ''phobos'', "fear") occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, abnormal, unwarranted, persistent, or disabling fear as a mental dis ...
* Mid-life crisis
A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle-aged individuals, typically 40 to 60 years old. The phenomenon is described as a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's grow ...
* Nihilism
* Thanatophobia
Death anxiety is anxiety caused by thoughts of one's own death, and is also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death). Death anxiety differs from necrophobia, which is the fear of others who are dead or dying.
Psychotherapist Robert Lan ...
References
Phobias
Ageing
Old age
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