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| Cancer phobia | |
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| Specialty | Psychology |
Cancer phobia, also known as carcinophobia, is a common phobia and an anxiety disorder characterized by the chronic fear of developing cancer. It can manifest in tremendous feelings of sadness, fear, panic, and distress. In some cases, the phobia can be so extreme that it prevents the individual from living a normal life.
People living with carcinophobia frequently suffer from depression. Sufferers may become reclusive and obsessive over their health. They may feel overwhelmed and fail to carry out their usual functions. The fear is associated with a lack of future planning and an overall poor quality of life. [1]
Anxieties surrounding cancer are exacerbated by fears of its unpredictability and perceived “indestructibility” as well as associated fears of mortality. [2]
Cancer survivors are also susceptible to developing a debilitating fear of recurrence due to their previous experience with the disease. Half of all cancer survivors report a moderate to high fear of recurrence. [3]
Cancer phobia can also appear in people suffering from Hypochondria. PTSD is also a common cause of the phobia. Anyone can have the phobia.
Several factors can heighten the risk of developing anxiety related to cancer. People may be more susceptible to anxiety if they have undergone certain experiences such as:
Psychotherapeutic approaches such as Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are recommended as effective interventions for managing anxiety in cancer patients. CBT is used for a wide variety of fears and phobias, including carcinophobia. It helps patients to increase awareness of their disorder and provides ways for patients to cope with their emotions. [5] Mind-body techniques are also designed to alleviate anxiety and help manage fears and phobias, including the fear associated with cancer. [6] Relaxation skills aim to relieve fears, stress, and bodily tension. Relaxation skills include progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and diaphragmatic breathing. [6] Meditation techniques include journaling, meditative movement, yoga practices, tai chi, and mindful dance. Research shows relaxation skills and meditation techniques have small to significant effects on managing anxiety due to cancer. [6]
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most effective means of treatment for substance abuse and co-occurring mental health disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Though it was originally designed to treat depression, its uses have been expanded to include many issues and the treatment of many mental health conditions, including anxiety, substance use disorders, marital problems, ADHD, and eating disorders. CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.
A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by an irrational, unrealistic, persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed. If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress. Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in blood or injury phobia, and panic attacks, often found in agoraphobia and emetophobia. Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias.
Agoraphobia is a mental and behavioral disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives their environment to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. These situations can include public transit, shopping centers, crowds and queues, or simply being outside their home on their own. Being in these situations may result in a panic attack. Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid these situations. In severe cases, people may become completely unable to leave their homes.
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 object or situation, persistence of the fear, and significant distress or problems functioning associated with the fear. A phobia can be the fear of anything.
Systematic desensitization, or graduated exposure therapy, is a behavior therapy developed by the psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe. It is used when a phobia or anxiety disorder is maintained by classical conditioning. It shares the same elements of both cognitive-behavioral therapy and applied behavior analysis. When used in applied behavior analysis, it is based on radical behaviorism as it incorporates counterconditioning principles. These include meditation and breathing. From the cognitive psychology perspective, cognitions and feelings precede behavior, so it initially uses cognitive restructuring.
Flooding, sometimes referred to as in vivo exposure therapy, is a form of behavior therapy and desensitization—or exposure therapy—based on the principles of respondent conditioning. As a psychotherapeutic technique, it is used to treat phobia and anxiety disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder. It works by exposing the patient to their painful memories, with the goal of reintegrating their repressed emotions with their current awareness. Flooding was invented by psychologist Thomas Stampfl in 1967. It is still used in behavior therapy today.
A cancer survivor is a person with cancer of any type who is still living. Whether a person becomes a survivor at the time of diagnosis or after completing treatment, whether people who are actively dying are considered survivors, and whether healthy friends and family members of the cancer patient are also considered survivors, varies from group to group. Some people who have been diagnosed with cancer reject the term survivor or disagree with some definitions of it.
Psycho-oncology is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of physical, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of the cancer experience for both patients and caregivers. Also known as psychiatric oncology or psychosocial oncology, researchers and practitioners in the field are concerned with aspects of individuals' experience with cancer beyond medical treatment, and across the cancer trajectory, including at diagnosis, during treatment, transitioning to and throughout survivorship, and approaching the end-of-life. Founded by Jimmie Holland in 1977 via the incorporation of a psychiatric service within the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the field has expanded drastically since and is now universally recognized as an integral component of quality cancer care. Cancer centers in major academic medical centers across the country now uniformly incorporate a psycho-oncology service into their clinical care, and provide infrastructure to support research efforts to advance knowledge in the field.
Phobophobia is a phobia defined as the fear of phobias, or the fear of fear, including intense anxiety and unrealistic and persistent fear of the somatic sensations and the feared phobia ensuing. Phobophobia can also be defined as the fear of phobias or fear of developing a phobia. Phobophobia is related to anxiety disorders and panic attacks directly linked to other types of phobias, such as agoraphobia. When a patient has developed phobophobia, their condition must be diagnosed and treated as part of anxiety disorders.
In psychology, desensitization is a treatment or process that diminishes emotional responsiveness to a negative, aversive, or positive stimulus after repeated exposure. Desensitization can also occur when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked when the action tendency associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary. The process of desensitization was developed by psychologist Mary Cover Jones and is primarily used to assist individuals in unlearning phobias and anxieties. Desensitization is a psychological process where a response is repeatedly elicited in circumstances where the emotion's propensity for action is irrelevant. Joseph Wolpe (1958) developed a method of a hierarchal list of anxiety-evoking stimuli in order of intensity, which allows individuals to undergo adaptation. Although medication is available for individuals with anxiety, fear, or phobias, empirical evidence supports desensitization with high rates of cure, particularly in clients with depression or schizophrenia. Wolpe's "reciprocal inhibition" desensitization process is based on well-known psychology theories such as Hull's "drive-reduction" theory and Sherrington's concept of "reciprocal inhibition." Individuals are gradually exposed to anxiety triggers while using relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety. It is an effective treatment for anxiety disorders.
Mental health professionals often distinguish between generalized social phobia and specific social phobia. People with generalized social phobia have great distress in a wide range of social situations. Those with specific social phobia may experience anxiety only in a few situations. The term "specific social phobia" may also refer to specific forms of non-clinical social anxiety.
Dental fear, or dentophobia, is a normal emotional reaction to one or more specific threatening stimuli in the dental situation. However, dental anxiety is indicative of a state of apprehension that something dreadful is going to happen in relation to dental treatment, and it is usually coupled with a sense of losing control. Similarly, dental phobia denotes a severe type of dental anxiety, and is characterised by marked and persistent anxiety in relation to either clearly discernible situations or objects or to the dental setting in general. The term ‘dental fear and anxiety’ (DFA) is often used to refer to strong negative feelings associated with dental treatment among children, adolescents and adults, whether or not the criteria for a diagnosis of dental phobia are met. Dental phobia can include fear of dental procedures, dental environment or setting, fear of dental instruments or fear of the dentist as a person. People with dental phobia often avoid the dentist and neglect oral health, which may lead to painful dental problems and ultimately force a visit to the dentist. The emergency nature of this appointment may serve to worsen the phobia. This phenomenon may also be called the cycle of dental fear. Dental anxiety typically starts in childhood. There is the potential for this to place strains on relationships and negatively impact on employment.
Social anxiety is the anxiety and fear specifically linked to being in social settings. Some categories of disorders associated with social anxiety include anxiety disorders, mood disorders, autism spectrum disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Individuals with higher levels of social anxiety often avert their gazes, show fewer facial expressions, and show difficulty with initiating and maintaining a conversation. Social anxiety commonly manifests itself in the teenage years and can be persistent throughout life; however, people who experience problems in their daily functioning for an extended period of time can develop social anxiety disorder. Trait social anxiety, the stable tendency to experience this anxiety, can be distinguished from state anxiety, the momentary response to a particular social stimulus. Half of the individuals with any social fears meet the criteria for social anxiety disorder. Age, culture, and gender impact the severity of this disorder. The function of social anxiety is to increase arousal and attention to social interactions, inhibit unwanted social behavior, and motivate preparation for future social situations.
Thalassophobia is the persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water, such as the ocean, seas, or lakes. Though very closely related, thalassophobia should not be confused with aquaphobia, which is classified as the fear of water itself. Thalassophobia can include fears of being in deep bodies of water, the vastness of the sea, sea waves, aquatic animals, and great distance from land.
Panic disorder is a mental and behavioral disorder, specifically an anxiety disorder characterized by reoccurring unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear that may include palpitations, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath, numbness, or a feeling that something terrible is going to happen. The maximum degree of symptoms occurs within minutes. There may be ongoing worries about having further attacks and avoidance of places where attacks have occurred in the past.
An informal or primary caregiver is an individual in a cancer patient's life that provides unpaid assistance and cancer-related care. Caregiving is defined as the processing of assiting someone who can't care for themselves, which includes physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. Due to the typically late onset of cancer, caregivers are often the spouses and/or children of patients, but may also be parents, other family members, or close friends. Taking care of family members at home is a complicated experience. The relationships involved constantly shift and change, in expected and unexpected ways. The expected or expected changes can negatively affect physical health, emotions, social life, and spiritual well-being of the caregiver. Informal caregivers are a major form of support for the cancer patient because they provide most care outside of the hospital environment. This support includes:
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a technique for treating insomnia without medications. Insomnia is a common problem involving trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting quality sleep. CBT-I aims to improve sleep habits and behaviors by identifying and changing the thoughts and the behaviors that affect the ability of a person to sleep or sleep well.
PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a psychiatric disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts and memories, dreams or flashbacks of the event; avoidance of people, places and activities that remind the individual of the event; ongoing negative beliefs about oneself or the world, mood changes and persistent feelings of anger, guilt or fear; alterations in arousal such as increased irritability, angry outbursts, being hypervigilant, or having difficulty with concentration and sleep.
Chronophobia, also known as prison neurosis, is considered an anxiety disorder describing the fear of time and time moving forward, which is commonly seen in prison inmates. Next to prison inmates, chronophobia is also identified in individuals experiencing quarantine due to COVID-19. As time is understood as a specific concept, chronophobia is categorized as a specific phobia.
Cognitive emotional behavioral therapy (CEBT) is an extended version of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) aimed at helping individuals to evaluate the basis of their emotional distress and thus reduce the need for associated dysfunctional coping behaviors. This psychotherapeutic intervention draws on a range of models and techniques including dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), mindfulness meditation, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and experiential exercises.