Last Updated on February 13, 2023 by Mike Robinson
What is Philemaphobia?
Like all phobias, philemaphobia must be accompanied by intense anxiety and a fear response when exposed to kissing. There are many different things that people can be afraid of, and these fears can be applied to kissing. Philemaphobia, however, differs from these other phobias.
Example of Philemaphobia
When kissing someone for the first time, one may become so anxious as to be physically unable to act. In this instance, the person kissing feels a lot of anxiety, but is the kiss itself the phobic element? Probably not, since in this situation, the person is undoubtedly experiencing anxiety for other reasons.
They are nervous because they want to start a relationship with that person. Because of this, they may fear rejection. They may think they are not good enough to live up to someone else’s expectations. In this case, we see that anxiety occurs before the kissing occurs, but the feared element is not the kiss itself but everything that the act of kissing represents.
That is, the person is not afraid to kiss but is fearful of being rejected or discovering that the other person does not have the same intentions as them. So, in this example, this person’s fear is not a result of philemaphobia.
How to Tell if Someone Has Philemaphobia
When we speak of philemaphobia, the feared action is the kiss, so the person fears kissing; that terrifies him, and even seeing other people do it scares him. Likewise, for this experienced fear to be considered as corresponding to an anxiety disorder, it must possess other primary characteristics.
How This Fear Affects People
- The fear experienced in the exposure of a kissing situation is disproportionate to the demands of the situation.
- The person cannot explain or reason the fear he experiences in those situations; he does not find sense and knows that it is irrational, but he can not avoid it.
- The fear he experiences when he kisses or someone kisses him is beyond his voluntary control; he can not manage the sensations of terror, and fear governs him.
- The person experiences such intense fear that it leads him to avoid any situation where kissing can take place systematically.
- The fear that appears before the actions of kissing persists over time and does not appear only sporadically or occasionally.
- Fear is maladaptive, does not bring benefits, and causes relational problems in the person.
- The fear experienced in these situations is not specific to a particular phase or age, so it persists in different stages of life.
With these seven primary characteristics of the fear experienced in philemaphobia, we see that not all the anxieties that can appear before a kiss situation corresponds to the suffering of this type of specific phobia.
In this way, if you get nervous when you kiss because you fear that they will kiss you unexpectedly or because you are afraid to kiss someone concretely, it does not mean that you have a phobia of kissing. Likewise, people with philemaphobia do not usually fear the kiss only when they experience it in the first person; they also present an exaggerated increase in anxiety when they see other people kissing.
Finally, as obvious as it may seem, people with philemaphobia cannot enjoy themselves when they kiss or are kissed, although this action is gratifying for most people. When someone tries to kiss someone with philemaphobia, they respond automatically with sensations of fear and terror. All they want is to avoid that situation.
What Causes Philemaphobia?
There are varying opinions on the causes of anxiety disorders. Therefore, no known single factor can explain the disorder’s appearance in the case of phobias. The cognitive-behavioral theory is a good approximation that explains the appearance of this type of phobia.
These theories try to explain how a previously neutral stimulus (such as the kiss) becomes an aversive stimulus that the subject fears altogether. The Mowrer two-factor learning theory is an approach that helps to explain how to address this problem.
This theory says that the neutral stimulus (the kiss) becomes aversive (fear of kissing) because of its motivational properties. He also says that the person’s avoiding things keeps the fear going. When someone with a fear of kissing stays away from situations where someone may kiss them, they avoid the main thing that keeps the fear alive. Therefore, when a person with a phobia of kissing starts avoiding tendencies, it becomes the main factor that maintains the phobia.
Likewise, studies indicate that philemaphobia may result from other related phobias, such as fear of intimacy or sexual intercourse. As regards the motivational factors that convert the neutral stimulus into a phobic and highly feared stimulus, the belief is that religious or cultural beliefs can play an important role. What you learned as a child and what you did when you were young could be why you have these fears.
So, the cause of this fear of kissing is this change in the person’s mind. This change can result from various things, including education, learning, beliefs, early experiences, and personality traits.
Best Treatment Options for Philemaphobia
The most positive aspect of phobias is that they can be treated and managed with relative effectiveness. You could say that philemaphobia has a solution. In general, many types of specific phobias do not require treatment. Some phobias have a small effect people’s daily life.
A clear example may be the phobia of spiders or other animals. These phobias interfere very little with a person’s quality of life. An individual can live with these phobias with practically no problem. The case of philemaphobia is different because of the unique feared event which is kissing. It involves a disorder that can have a much more significant impact on the person’s life.
Kissing is one of the most memorable and rewarding behaviors that people have. It is one of our primary methods for expressing our feelings and appreciation to our loved ones. A person with philemaphobia has the same emotions as those without this disorder. They can love and appreciate other people. However, what limits them is one of the actions of emotional expression that humans have: the kiss.
Therefore, it is helpful that people with philemaphobia treat their fear through psychotherapy to eliminate their phobias.
Cognitive behavioral treatment
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the most effective psychological treatment for these phobias because it can help almost all of them go away. Both cognitive (dealing with the thoughts) and behavioral techniques are successful in these treatments (addressing the actions).
Regarding the fear of kissing, the two main techniques are relaxation and exposure. With relaxation, you reduce anxiety levels, and the person transfers to a calm state, allowing him to develop skills to control their fear.
Pictures and videos expose the person to something they fear (the kiss) after being calmed down about it. The goal is for the person to get used to what they fear until they no longer fear it. Lastly, cognitive techniques can help change the wrong ideas about kissing, which may be a big part of why the phobia keeps going.
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