Zoophobia, or animal phobia, is the irrational fear or aversion towards animals (excluding humans). Zoophobia is the general negative reaction of animals, but it is usually divided into many subgroups, each being of a specific type of zoophobia. Although zoophobia as a whole is quite rare, types of the fear are common. As mentioned before by
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
, an animal phobia is one of the most frequent psychoneurotic diseases among children.
[Nandor Fodor, Frank Gaynor, "Freud: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis", 2004: (initial publ. 1950)]
article "Zoophobia, infantile", pp. 205-206
/ref> Zoophobia is almost never towards mammals
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
, but instead towards non-mammalia creatures. A list of common zoophobias is shown below.
See also
*Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia is a specific phobia brought about by the irrational fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions.
Signs and symptoms
People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbour spiders or that h ...
*Entomophobia
Entomophobia sometimes known as Insectophobia is a specific phobia characterized by an excessive or unrealistic fear of one or more classes of insect, and classified as a phobia by the DSM-5. More specific cases includes arachnophobia (fear of spi ...
*Ophidiophobia
Ophidiophobia (or ophiophobia) is a particular type of specific phobia, the irrational fear of snakes. It is sometimes called by a more general term, herpetophobia, fear of reptiles. The word comes from the Greek words "ophis" (), snake, and "pho ...
*Ornithophobia
Ornithophobia is the abnormal and irrational fear of birds, as well as a type of specific phobia. The term may also refer to strong dislike of birds. People with Ornithophobia are often afraid of specific types of birds, for example chickens, duck ...
*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 diso ...
References
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