A Humours Speech on Stupid Phobias
this is an extract that was delivered at a humours speaking contest in Manchester
Did you know that 13% of the population have some form of phobia?
When you think about phobias, most people think about arachnophobia the fear of spiders. Some psychologist believe that this phobia has been past down from our ancestors the hunter and gatherers, as an inbuilt safety device.
The idea being that when we were walking through the forest we would see a spider, become highly anxious and run away. If we run away the spider cant bite us. I’m not sure about this, with the forest being filled with lions, tigers and bears, why would we be scared of spiders?
But saying that, spiders come in all different sizes, have you ever seen a tranchula close up?
The 3 most common fears are public speaking, spiders and heights. Some psychologist believe that no-one is born with a phobia, that phobia are learnt over time. IE You get scared about something, re-play it in your mind over and over again, making the fear worse until it becomes a phobia.
I’m not convinced by this. When I took my girlfriend for a “surprise” birthday parachute jump, she made it quite clear that she had a phobia of jumping out of a plane. She also made it very clear that she new lots of swear words!!!!
Some phobias are really strange, as a hypnotherapist clients ring me all the time with some wonderful and weird phobias. Only yesterday a client telephoned me “Hi Chris I need your help! I have Trypophobia” Trypophobia is the fear of holes. Not just holes in the wall, or holes in the road but all types of holes. This guy had an Areo chocolate bar, he takes the rapper off, takes a bite and arghhhhhh holes! He was so terrified that he runs off, but the fear makes his arm lock into place so he cant drop the holey chocolate bar.
Thats not the strangest phobia. One of my favourite phobias is Papaphobia the fear of the pope. Or nomophobia the fear of losing your phone signal.
Papaphobia, nomophobia; I always wonder who psychologist come up with these names? I mean they mus be really bored. I always think it’s a bit like countdown; “Hey Tony people are scared of the Pope, what shall we call this phobia?” “I don’t know, take 3 letters from the top and 1 from the bottom and just add phobia to the end of it” “Papapphobia!!”
I have some great examples; Anoptaphobia – the fear of staying single, Turophobia the fear of cheese and Macophobia the fear of long…….waits.
But one psychologist wasn’t bored, he must of loved his job or at least had a great sense of humour. He came up with
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia…..The fear of Long Words!
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