While some people suffer from loneliness and wait for love, others do everything possible to appear as unattractive as possible in the eyes of others. The reason for this behavior is philophobia or fear of falling in love. This disorder is one of the subtypes of social phobia and puts an end to happy and harmonious romantic relationships. If you notice that thoughts about falling in love cause anxiety, it is recommended to consult a psychotherapist who will help determine the cause of the fear and get rid of the disorder.
Causes of philophobia
The pain of the collapse of love hopes leads in the future to horror of new acquaintances
The fear of falling in love occurs at different ages. It first begins to sprout in childhood and adolescence. The fear of falling in love has many reasons, but most often it develops on the basis of relationships within the family. Scandals of parents, humiliation of a mother or father by a partner, a stormy showdown and disrespect for a spouse - all this happens before the eyes of a child and forms incorrect attitudes from childhood. As a result, a person is sure that love goes hand in hand with suffering, pain and fear, so he consciously tries to avoid this feeling.
Another reason psychologists call is prejudice towards people of the opposite sex. Most often this is due to the neglectful attitude of the mother or father. A classic example is a single mother raising a girl who constantly speaks disparagingly about men. The opposite scenario is also possible: a woman alone raises her son in strictness, and speaks negatively about his father, who does not live with her, as a result the boy develops the opinion that all women are enemies and are not worthy of love.
Quite often, philophobia develops against the background of events that occurred during adolescence. The most common reasons:
- ridicule from people of the opposite sex;
- unrequited first love;
- negative first sexual experience;
- loss of a lover.
A teenager who is ridiculed by his peers is confident in his unattractiveness. In the future, this may cause the development of a phobia of feelings, but here we are more likely talking about a defense mechanism - a person does not allow himself to fall in love, so as not to be rejected. The same is true in the case of unrequited love, when a person received a refusal that greatly traumatized him.
Both women and men may encounter a phobia against the backdrop of a negative first sexual experience. Moreover, here we are talking not only about rape, but also about the inattention of the partner.
The most severe reason for the development of a phobia is the loss of a loved one. This event hits the psyche hardest in adolescence and young adulthood; an adult is able to cope with the loss more quickly. Due to severe pain, a person literally closes in on himself and decides to never allow romantic feelings again, so as not to encounter pain again. In this case, two phobias intersect - the fear of falling in love and the fear of losing a loved one.
The loss of a loved one does not always mean tragic events and death; it can also be a break in a relationship, which has become an extremely painful event for the human psyche.
In adults, philophobia can be a consequence of a difficult divorce process, especially if the breakup is associated with a partner’s betrayal.
Other reasons
One of the causes of a phobia may be the fear of kissing. It can be triggered by various reasons:
- Fear of losing control over yourself and your feelings.
- Fear of bacteria and microbes that live in the human oral cavity.
- Fear of letting a person get close to you.
- Reluctance to leave your comfort zone, feeling constrained if someone takes the initiative.
To prevent such fear from developing into real panic, you need to visit a psychotherapist. It will help get rid of the problem.
For some people, fear of love becomes the reason not for divorce, but for the loss of a loved one. The feeling of joy and happiness that is suddenly cut short by the death of a loved one can be a real shock. Often people have thoughts that love must be paid for, so they prefer to remain alone.
Philophobia can appear in infantile people who do not want to take responsibility. Guys often find male responsibilities in the family scary, which pushes them away from serious relationships.
Symptoms
The fear of falling in love manifests itself in various symptoms. Moreover, a person is fully aware of his fear and can argue. However, this does not prevent the acute symptoms that arise when getting close to a potential romantic partner.
In most cases, philophobia leaves an imprint on a person’s character, changing him for the worse, but a more severe course of the disorder is possible, when the phobia is accompanied by symptoms of an anxiety disorder and panic attacks.
Psycho-emotional and behavioral manifestations
Guys practice short-term intimate relationships, constantly changing girls
It should be noted that in most cases, philophobia applies only to strong and trusting romantic relationships, but does not in any way affect sexual relationships. In other words, a person calmly flirts and changes partners, but does not experience anything other than sexual attraction to them. Any hint of a continuation of the affair causes an exacerbation of the phobia, so all connections are limited to just a few meetings or friendships. The subject of fear is precisely the deep feeling that a person can experience, but not the object that causes these emotions. Therefore, it cannot be said that philophobes are pathologically afraid of women or men and practice sexual abstinence.
The signs and symptoms of philophobia depend on how the person explains their behavior. Most often, philophobes are frightened by one or more items from the following list:
- dependence on another person;
- loss of personal freedom;
- responsibility in relationships;
- fear of loss;
- fear of betrayal (betrayal);
- financial responsibility for the family.
Philophobes are very common among men, and they explain their fear precisely by the fear of dependence, loss of personal freedom or financial responsibility. But women are most often afraid of betrayal or loss of a loved one.
Manifestations of phobia:
- sloppiness;
- deliberate neglect of one's appearance;
- emphasized selfishness;
- secrecy;
- desire for loneliness;
- frequent change of partners.
Despite this, philophobes do not avoid society and often spend time in noisy companies. Moreover, they tend to choose unfamiliar companies, since in this case they can avoid awkward questions on personal topics. In addition, philophobic men prefer one-night stands, so they often visit nightclubs.
The fear of falling in love also manifests itself in women - they are afraid of long-term relationships, but light flirting often does not cause discomfort. True, if the admirer turns out to be too intrusive, this will cause aggression, anxiety and fear in the woman, so further communication will be quickly interrupted.
Philophobes do not allow themselves to date one person for a long time, fearing the development of attachment, so their romantic relationships rarely last more than a few weeks. People with this phobia call themselves childfree because they do not allow the thought of getting married and having children. If philophobes decide to have a child, they most often raise him alone, without a partner.
As a rule, philophobia does not apply to children, with rare exceptions.
Bodily manifestations
There is a feeling of unreality in the world around you
Often, philophobes manage to control their emotions without allowing attachments. If this happens by accident, the person will experience a panic attack. In rare cases, panic attacks occur at the mere thought of being romantically involved with another person.
This phenomenon manifests itself in attacks and is characterized by the following symptoms:
- feeling of lack of air;
- chest pain;
- increased blood pressure and rapid pulse;
- dizziness and headache;
- desire to run away and hide;
- a feeling of derealization and depersonalization;
- tremor of the limbs;
- cold sweat;
- uncontrollable panic and anxiety.
A person may encounter such symptoms if a partner hints at a serious relationship. A panic attack can occur if, when talking with a potential one-night stand, a philophobe catches himself thinking that this person interests him not only as a sexual object.
In general, acute symptoms are not typical for philophobia and appear very rarely, as a rule, against the background of prolonged stress or severe fatigue, when the nervous system needs to be restored.
What is philophobia
Philophobia - what is it? Philophobia is the fear of love, the fear of losing a loved one, the fear of falling in love. The patient is haunted by an irrational fear of falling in love, a fear of becoming a hostage to a relationship, of being at the mercy of another person, of losing oneself and the ability to think rationally. The philophobe is not ready for a long-term relationship; he is afraid of ending up in psychological, material, and moral dependence on another person.
A person who is afraid of falling in love can enter into a relationship, but if the partner wants to talk seriously, then the patient will break off this relationship with a scandal, betrayal, hysteria, and a dissatisfied cry of “don’t drink me.” Sometimes such relationships can last a long time, but such a union cannot be called healthy and happy. Philophobes may even have children, but the patient will always be cold towards them and their partner.
It is important! Philophobe perceives relationships as a source of negativity, boredom, problems, and disappointments.
Treatment
How to get rid of philophobia depends on the severity of the disorder. In some cases, a person just needs to learn to deal with stress and let go of the situation, giving a potential partner the opportunity to dispel all fears and doubts themselves. However, in most cases, a course of psychotherapy is necessary, since one cannot cope with the problem on one’s own.
Psychotherapy
It is recommended to begin treatment of philophobia by visiting a psychotherapist. The doctor will help you understand the reasons for the development of pathological fear, and knowledge of the origins of the phobia is the key to successful treatment. In some cases, Gestalt therapy is necessary to cope with unclosed Gestalts that go back to deep childhood. Gestalt therapy is recommended for people who have suffered the loss of a loved one. This method also allows you to cope with the pain of negative sexual experiences, including rape.
In other cases, cognitive behavioral therapy is practiced. The method is aimed at correcting incorrect attitudes, changing a person’s way of thinking and behavior.
Medication method
Drugs are not used to combat fears of love or the fear of falling in love. The only exceptions are cases of neuroses and depression that develop against the background of phobia. Tranquilizers are used to treat neuroses; for depression, antidepressants and anxiolytics are indicated. These drugs are available only by prescription and must be prescribed by a doctor.
An alternative to drug therapy in some cases are relaxation methods - acupuncture, electrosleep, relaxing massage. These methods relieve stress and tension, thereby making it possible to more effectively combat the phobia.
Getting rid of fear
You need to watch love films, but only with a happy ending
The best way to get rid of fear is to face it. In the case of mild forms of philophobia, a person is advised to simply give vent to his feelings. Of course, this does not mean that you need to fall in love with the first person you meet. Psychologists recommend starting with studying the theoretical part - romance novels and romantic films. A person with philophobia is invited to live the lives of the main characters and try to feel their experiences without regard to fear. This can be combined with the method of visualizing your own fear (fear exposure) - imagine yourself in a long-term love relationship and try to analyze all aspects of fear. As a rule, several such “trainings” make it clear that nothing bad will happen because of falling in love.
Getting rid of the fear of falling in love: correction methods
Treatment of philophobia is a rather subtle and complex task, affecting various aspects of the problem of love. Some try to treat this “disease” by trying to convince a person how important love is for every person. They are trying to prove to them that man needs love and relationships with the opposite sex as a social being. In their opinion, a person “should” love, and if this does not happen, then the person is simply a kind of “sensual parasite,” an antisocial creature, an inferior person, and the like. Such people do not seem to understand the essence of the problem at all. It is impossible to make a person feel. Love, like philophobia, is an irrational phenomenon that cannot be fully controlled by the intellect, and no appeals or ideologies can change human feelings, especially those embedded in the subconscious and at the level of primary instincts.
However, for psychotherapists, correcting philophobia is not an insurmountable task. According to them, the disorder can be cured in most cases. What is important here is the patient’s complete trust in the specialist and the willingness to talk frankly with him.
In particular, various psychotrainings are intended to help cope with the problem. In them, a person learns to recognize his phobia, its causes, and overcome them. One of the radical, but quite effective methods is that the patient must do what he is most afraid of, and even get satisfaction from it.
Success in the treatment of philophobia is determined by the interest of the patient himself. Often people themselves turn to a specialist with such a problem; philophobes really want to love, they experience very deep and strong feelings in their souls, but there are certain obstacles that prevent them from realizing them. With the help of a specialist, the patient can overcome these obstacles and understand that there are no real reasons for fear - all fears are fictitious.
Falling in love is a state of a person’s inner world. But the paradox is that the philophobe shows too much attention to his inner world, without being able to switch to real circumstances. A person is absorbed in problems that do not exist in the surrounding reality, instead of subordinating his love to this reality. Often, philophobia is a manifestation of idealism: a person is too in love with some ideal image of a partner created by his imagination, and is afraid that the real partner will be different from this image. Such pathological idealists should simply be returned to reality.
Philophobia: symptoms
It should be emphasized that the manifestations of philophobia are varied and unique for each individual. However, there is a common detail in this diversity: the obsessive fear of falling in love completely changes the characterological portrait of a person.
A person suffering from philophobia, whom everyone considered the life of the party, turns into a gloomy and gloomy loner , preferring to spend all his free time within the four walls of his native land. Or, conversely, a person distinguished by shyness and modesty, in the blink of an eye, chooses active and noisy leisure time , trying to be the center of attention of a noisy society.
With philophobia, a person can be very neat and tidy, carefully caring for his appearance and choosing an extravagant wardrobe. Or, conversely, the fear of falling in love turns a person into an unkempt little scruffy woman who is completely indifferent to her appearance.
A subject suffering from philophobia can carefully monitor their diet by eating healthy foods. Or the fear of falling in love leads to the fact that the individual begins to deliberately go hungry or eat dishes without surroundings.
Another manifestation of philophobia is a person’s attitude towards intimate relationships. One group of patients deliberately avoids sexual contact with the opposite sex. Other people with philophobia, on the contrary, actively lead a promiscuous sex life, regularly changing partners.
Individuals with philophobia also have a peculiar attitude towards family ties. Some patients avoid Hymen's bonds like fire. Other people, on the contrary, start a family with the first person they meet and have a large crowd of heirs, without experiencing any sincere feelings for their spouse.
Causes
The first and most important reason is precisely the lack of reciprocal feeling in the object of desire. It is childhood or youthful love, which has not developed into something serious and long-lasting, that is one of the most powerful factors. The rest do not have such an influence, but at the same time they are also inextricably linked with the topic of relationships with the opposite sex.
These include:
- Failure to meet the ideal. It's rare that one person meets or even exceeds another's expectations. On the contrary, a much more common situation is when an external image forces one to endow a person one likes with those properties that he, in principle, never had and could not have.
- Death of a loved one. The loss of loved ones is associated with some of the most powerful negative emotions a person is capable of. At the same time, the deceased becomes an unattainable and infallible ideal that others are unable to reach.
- Horrible first experience of sexual intercourse. It may not even be rape, just a discrepancy between expectations and the final result. Inattention, rudeness or the dismissive attitude of a person who was allowed so close can also play a role in the development of the fear of falling in love.
- Childhood experiences. If, as a child, a philophobe lived in a family in which parents did not practice respect for each other, he subconsciously sees that nothing good comes from closeness. If there is physical or psychological violence of one spouse over the other, the family can only cause disgust.
- Breaking a long official relationship. Divorce after several years of marriage can cause emotional withdrawal. In the case where the cause is the infidelity of one of the spouses, the situation becomes even more complicated.
All this can convince for a long time (if not forever) to avoid intimacy with others. But this requires serious psychological prerequisites - without them, a person will not be in the emotional state necessary for the development of a phobia.
Contributing problems
First of all, it is a system of socio-cultural values among which all people live.
Modern society develops in the traditions of individualism and egocentrism. The result is an insurmountable fixation solely on one’s own good. Other individuals nearby are perceived solely as rivals and invaders, capable of taking away happiness and appropriating it for themselves. The consumer society, which is so aggressively promoted in our time, also bears a large share of the blame. The creative part of human nature gives way to the more mundane. Relationships, family, children, and other social constructs are perceived as an obstacle to uncontrolled hedonism.
Less influential reasons include:
- A complex of one's own inferiority instilled by the environment. A person himself believes that he is unworthy of love and happiness.
- Selfishness. Living exclusively for oneself and without any concern for others seems to the individual to be the absolutely correct path.
- Irresponsibility. Constant avoidance of a direct answer for one’s own words or actions inevitably fosters first a sense of one’s infallibility, and then a conscious disregard for the events of life.
- Own independence is at the forefront. A person tries to resist social foundations and traditions, following the same path of individualism.
Precisely because the methodical deconstruction of any previously created moral standards is a trait more likely to be characteristic of people of adolescence or young adulthood. Therefore, it is not surprising that, as a disease, philophobia often simply goes away with age, if there were no things too traumatic to the subconscious for its development.
Similar phobias
Fear of falling in love is not the only disorder that is based on the world of feelings and interpersonal relationships. There are at least two more types, which, rather, reveal in more detail the main problem with a slightly different, sexual overtone:
- Agraphobia is the fear of being harassed for sexual intercourse. Today we can say that it is very widespread in the West, given the spread of third wave feminism in these countries.
- Genophobia is the fear of sexual intercourse. At the same time, the patient may experience the warmest feelings for his partner.
The latter species is one of the most dangerous today. Humanity is increasingly developing according to the canons of selfishness and self-centrism. Therefore, unmotivated refusals of sex received from a loved one may be perceived incorrectly and even with a grain of skepticism.
Agraphobia also cannot be called harmless. Recently, cases of incorrect interpretation of words or actions in relation to the opposite sex have only become more frequent. Therefore, we will either have to revise the entire paradigm of interpersonal relationships, or change the legislation and force it to regulate such cases.
How to get rid of philophobia
The main method of treatment is psychotherapeutic conversation. It is important to find the root cause and all the hidden fears of the philophobe. They are located at the subconscious level, so it is better to entrust the work to a specialist.
Working independently with fear
It is important to understand that anxiety and panic are caused by fantasies about future betrayal, someone leaving, death, violence, etc., as well as memories of negative experiences of the past. You need to change your attitude towards the traumatic experience, think about what depends on you, and what you can do to avoid its repetition.
How to overcome the fear of falling in love, how to get rid of a phobia:
- Admit. Say out loud “I'm afraid of falling in love.”
- Find the root cause. After this it will be clear in which direction you need to move.
- Adjust your expectations and allow yourself to make mistakes. There is no need to come up with a negative scenario for the development of relationships in advance. Act according to the “here and now” principle, analyze the present.
- Adjust self-esteem. Realize your value and importance. Learn to understand and satisfy your desires and needs. Practice meditation, auto-training.
- Redirect energy. Direct your energy to working with fears, building relationships, self-development, rather than feeding it fears.
- Get rid of perfectionism and the search for ideals. Learn to pay attention to the merits of other people, features and uniqueness, stop comparing everyone with the ideal, looking for only positive qualities. Make a list of shortcomings that you can live with and pay attention to them.
- Read books about love and watch romantic films, always with a happy ending. Try to feel the emotions of the main characters and understand their state.
Get over yourself and become more open. Start getting to know people yourself, tell them something about yourself. This is the only way you can overcome fear.
Psychologist's advice
Regardless of the root cause of fear, all patients are advised to work on self-esteem, form an adequate positive perception and self-perception, and change their usual lifestyle. Treatment methods are selected individually depending on the identified root cause and the characteristics of the patient. Psychoanalysis, Gestalt therapy, and cognitive behavioral psychotherapy are used.
In especially severe cases, hypnosis sessions and medication treatment (tranquilizers, antidepressants, anxiolytics) are indicated. Relaxing physiotherapy procedures are prescribed as additional measures.
Main symptoms
Here everything very much depends on the patient’s personality type, how introverted or extroverted he is, the level of socialization and other habits.
Sexual preferences also play a significant role. It is definitely impossible to immediately recognize a philophobe. Since his mental problem is in the area of feelings, it manifests itself precisely when he somehow behaves differently in relationships with other people of the opposite sex.
First of all, it is worth noting the ease of communicating with them. Without experiencing any strong emotions due to panic fear in their occurrence, the patient can speak absolutely freely with people, regardless of their gender.
Secondly, there are sometimes rather strange steps in choosing a life partner. They can associate her for a long time with those who do not value them at all. They irrationally enjoy a humiliated and depressed state, which makes it clear that a relationship like theirs is definitely not love. Psychologists call this Stockholm syndrome, but a special case of it is philophobia.
Other features may include:
- Preference for one-time connections. At the same time, both a disdainful and overly attentive attitude towards one’s own body can manifest itself.
- Avoidance of public places. There will always be some couple who, without hesitation, will show each other increased signs of attention. Watching her will become a very unpleasant experience for the patient, up to the appearance of panic attacks.
- Increased sweating, trembling hands, or fainting near members of the opposite sex. Or, on the contrary, absolute calm and emphasized coldness.
Poor knowledge of this disease and its strong similarity to others makes the diagnostic task very difficult. Therefore, fear of love is a very specific phobia.
