Last Updated on March 11, 2023 by Mike Robinson
Enochlophobia, or “fear of crowds,” is an anxiety disorder characterized by an irrational, excessive, and uncontrollable fear of crowds. This fear triggers an anxiety response automatically, which causes a high level of discomfort for the person. The anxiety experienced in enochlophobia is so high that it provokes avoidance and escape behaviors in the individual.
This fact translates into the fact that the person with this type of phobia will avoid at all times being in situations where there are many people to avoid the high discomfort that it causes.
The alterations caused by this disorder can seriously affect both the individual’s well-being and functionality. Likewise, it can limit the performance of a large number of activities. However, the best news about this alteration is its interventions allow optimal recovery.
In this article, we will review the characteristics of enochlophobia. We will review what its symptoms are, what factors are related to its diagnosis, and what interventions are needed to overcome it.
Characteristics of Enochlophobia
Enochlophobia is a relatively common type of known phobia. These disorders cause an excessive, irrational, and unjustifiable fear of crowds of people. In the globalized world in which we live today, crowds are a reasonably common occurrence.
There are many situations in which large numbers of people can congregate. Likewise, at most events of interest, it is only possible to attend in the company of many other people. For all this, enochlophobia is a disorder that can seriously affect an individual’s life.
In the first place, it can limit its functionality a lot since the person may not be able to attend or go through different areas where large numbers of people are. On the other hand, the individual with enochlophobia may often be unable to avoid crowds, which causes an immediate response of anxiety and high discomfort.
Symptoms of Enochlophobia
The symptoms of enochlophobia appear in response to the intense fear that the person presents about crowds. In this way, when the individual must face their feared stimulus (crowds of people), they experience a series of manifestations.
The symptoms that are present in this disorder are related to an apparent increase in tension and nervousness in the subject. The person experiences a high level of fear that produces tense anxiety symptoms. The symptoms of anxiety can result from various causes. The intensity of the symptoms can vary in each individual, depending on the situation.
The larger the crowd, the fewer options the person has to escape. Usually, the manifestations of enochlophobia do not end up developing into a panic attack. Although often, the symptoms are very intense. The symptoms of enochlophobia affect three areas: physical, cognitive, and behavioral.
Physical Symptoms
Physical manifestations are the first symptoms that a person with enochlophobia experiences when exposed to crowds. These manifestations constitute a series of physiological changes that occur in response to an increase in the alertness and anxiety of the person.
In enochlophobia, these manifestations can be variable, but all of them refer to an increase in the activity of the central nervous system. The increase in the cardiac and respiratory rates is the most typical symptom, although you can also experience tachycardia, palpitations, or sensations of drowning.
Likewise, increased muscle tension, pupillary dilation, and sweating may occur in many cases. On the other hand, headaches or stomach pain can often occur due to increased body tension. Likewise, depersonalization and intense dizziness will appear in the most severe cases.
Cognitive Level
The brain quickly interprets and analyzes the physical manifestations, which refer to a clear state of anxiety. In this sense, enochlophobia appears as a series of thoughts about the fear of crowds.
Cognitions such as the danger that many people gathered at a specific site, the negative consequences that may entail, and the need to escape to be safe are usual.
Thoughts about the personal inability to survive in those situations also play an essential role in the pathology. However, the cognitions that can appear in a person with enochlophobia are multiple and uncontrollable. Thought results from fear, so any negative cognition about this situation can develop.
Behavioral Level
The fear that a person with enochlophobia presents directly affects their behaviors. The primary behavioral symptom of this disorder is avoidance. The individual with this disorder will try to avoid crowds whenever possible.
Likewise, escape behaviors are often the most common behavioral responses among individuals with enochlophobia when immersed in a crowd.
Enochlophobia vs. Agoraphobia
Enochlophobia bears similarities with another anxiety disorder popularly known as agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is more prevalent (almost 3%) than enochlophobia (less than 0.3%) worldwide.
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder that appears in places or situations where escape can be difficult. Crowds and crowded places are obvious places to escape, but they can be more complicated. In this way, it is one of the most feared situations in agoraphobia.
Enochlophobia and agoraphobia can be irrational and excessive fear of crowds. However, they are not the same disorder. The difference between both pathologies lies in the feared element. While in enochlophobia, only crowded places are feared, in agoraphobia, situations, where escape is complicated are feared.
In agoraphobia, then, the dreaded spaces are not limited to crowds. Being in a subway or bus (despite this emptiness) can be feared by someone with agoraphobia since escape is complicated. However, it will not be for a person with this disorder since they fear only crowds.
Characteristics of Enochlophobia
As we can see, the factor that causes the symptomatology of enochlophobia is the fear of a particular element, crowds of people. Although certain people may like these places, it is evident that human beings require, in many moments, their own space.
In this way, some people have a greater tolerance for crowds, and individuals feel more uncomfortable when surrounded by other people. In any case, crowded spaces can be a relatively dangerous situation.
Not all types of fears toward crowds constitute a mental alteration. And not everyone afraid of crowds have enochlophobia. For fear of crowded spaces to qualify as a disorder, it must meet the following characteristics:
Excessive Fear
The fear manifested in the enochlophobia is excessive in response to the demands of the situation. In this way, experiencing fear amid a large crowd of people, with avalanches, or with some other danger does not constitute enochlophobia.
In enochlophobia, the crowd does not represent any real danger to the individual, but he experiences it as such.
Irrational Fear
The fear of enochlophobia is not the result of other situations. There is no coherent argument to explain the appearance of fear. The person who suffers from this disorder cannot explain why he fears crowds and what elements make him afraid of them.
Uncontrollable Anxiety
The fear is irrational, and the person who suffers from it cannot control it. Both the appearance and maintenance of this fear are beyond the control of the individual. It appears automatically without the individual being able to do anything.
Avoidance Behavior
To associate fear of crowds with enochlophobia, fear must provoke acts of avoidance of crowded situations for the sufferer. If the individual can remain amid crowds of people despite their fear, they most likely do not have enochlophobia.
This disorder causes the avoidance or escape of crowds invariably. And when one remains in the feared situation, they experience high discomfort.
Causes of Enochlophobia
The development of fears is a normal process for all humans. All people can experience these kinds of emotions. Research on the etiology of specific phobias shows that conditioning plays a fundamental role in their development.
However, there is no single cause of enochlophobia, which is why different factors can play a relevant role.
Classical Conditioning
Having lived through traumatic experiences related to crowds or crowded spaces can play a significant role in developing enochlophobia. These experiences can develop a fear of those situations that can become pathological.
Vicarious Learning
In the same way, visualizing great catastrophes in crowded places of people or adverse events related to crowds can condition the person’s experience of fear and contribute to the development of the phobia.
Genetic factors
Although they are not very well studied, many authors defend the presence of genetic factors in specific phobias.
The heritability of these alterations is considered generalized in anxiety. So people with family members with anxiety disorders would be more likely to develop anxiety disorders, including enochlophobia.
Cognitive factors
These elements are primarily related to the maintenance of the phobia and not so much to its genesis. Unrealistic beliefs about the damage that could be received if exposed to the feared stimulus. Additionally, attentional biases towards threats related to phobia, low perceptions of self-efficacy, and an exaggerated perception of danger are key factors in the maintenance of enochlophobia.
Treatment Options for Enochlophobia
Fortunately, today some interventions allow the recovery of specific phobias, including enochlophobia. The intervention that has proved effective in achieving these objectives is cognitive behavioral treatment.
This type of psychotherapy intervenes in the person’s mental and behavioral components. In this treatment, the subject is exposed to its feared elements.
As in enochlophobia, the element feared is the crowds. It is often difficult to make a live exhibition. For this reason, exposure is often used in imagination and through exposure in virtual reality.
Also read: How to Apply Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety.
Through the exhibition, the person becomes accustomed to the crowds and overcomes their fear of them.
Likewise, relaxation techniques reduce anxiety symptoms, and cognitive tools like CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), modify negative thoughts toward crowds.
