How has the pandemic affected us through travel phobia?

Our most irrational fears do not arise out of nowhere, but rather have their origin, in the majority of occasions, in our interaction with the rest of the world, and especially with the rest of the society.

That is why experiences as emotionally complicated as the coronavirus pandemic have led some people to internalize a series of intense fears that are a sequel to that experience. In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, travel phobia, also called hodophobia, may be one of the forms that these psychological alterations leave; let's see why.

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What is hodophobia?

Specific phobias are one of the most prevalent disorders in today's modern societies, and constitute a great source of discomfort both for those who suffer from them and for their environment.

There are many types of phobia associated with various specific triggers, and some of the The most common are phobias of certain animals, needles, open spaces or to travel. When the person comes into contact with stimuli that make him feel in the proximity of these phobic elements, he suffers a sudden rise in his anxiety levels, to the point of having trouble not losing control of what does.

Hodophobia or travel phobia is a phobia associated with an a priori positive concept such as the act of travelling, but which generates great discomfort both emotionally and physically or cognitively in people who suffer from it.

Thus, hodophobia or travel phobia is the irrational fear of participating in any trip away from our home with any means of transport enabled for this purpose, mainly by plane, train, car or boat.

Of course, it should not be confused with the phobia of airplanes, based on the specific fear of having an accident inside these means of transport. What is scary in hodophobia is the very experience of leaving the region that is familiar to us, to which we have become accustomed and/or which is part of the place in which people with our ethnic or cultural background live.

This phobia manifests itself with a high level of fear, anguish, panic or anxiety at the idea of ​​having to make a trip from the whatever its nature and obviously for as long as it lasts, due to a series of very different reasons from one person to another. other.

Some of the reasons that can cause this irrational fear can be the anguish of having to leave the comfort and security of the home, as well as the fact of having to face an unknown situation and that we control.

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Causes of travel phobia

Although each person experiences this affectation in a different way due to their own particularities, there are a series of more or less frequent causes that can explain the appearance of the phobia of traveling. They are the following.

1. traumatic experiences

As in most of the phobias that exist, the phobia of traveling can be triggered by a traumatic experience in the past or specifically in childhood.

These types of experiences leave such a large emotional imprint on the person that it can generate consequences due to the way in which that experience is "saved" in memory. Because of this, the concept of what reminds us of that traumatic experience is easily activated by all the stimuli that are related to that experience, and a response based on the anxiety.

The traumatic experience that the person has lived can be of many types, among the most common are: getting lost while traveling, having suffered a kidnapping or robbery, having witnessed an attack, having experienced a plane crash, or simply having had a very bumpy trip at some point in the life.

• Related article: "What is trauma and how does it influence our lives?"

2. Biological predisposing factors to anxiety

On some occasions, this type of phobia can appear without there being a clear trigger in the form of a specific event, but due to a series of circumstances linked to a biological predisposition to suffer from anxiety, this type of anxiety arises. disorder.

And it is that there are those who are more likely to suffer from abnormally high levels of anxiety in situations that do not pose a real danger, something that may be due to genetics or an alteration that occurred in the early stages of development and that has conditioned the functioning of the nervous system.

3. ignorance

Simply not knowing how something works or what to expect from an experience (for example, going to another country) can lead to irrational fear based on the problems for manage that uncertainty. And once you've learned to fear something, it's easy for that vicious circle to keep reinforcing itself.

For example, in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, it may be that someone who has never traveled or has traveled very little has "come in contact" with the concept of traveling mainly through the alarmist messages issued for months about the risk of contagion that came to mean going to another country for a few days, so that this union of concepts, that of traveling and that of being in danger, become very united when you try to go away for tourism after the stage of the crisis COVID-19.

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The influence of the pandemic through travel phobia

Travel phobia is a relatively uncommon disorder, but where it is present it can be a very significant problem. For example, in those who maintain a long-distance relationship or must go to other countries with some frequency for work.

In the case of the COVID-19 crisis, all the necessary circumstances have been given for the cases of this disorder to increase. On the one hand, emphasis has been placed on all the implications that traveling has for our immune system; if in previous decades we hardly thought about it, this pandemic has reminded us that the transmission of diseases is a real risk in a very globalized society, and that when we go to a distant place, we are somewhat more exposed to serious cases because our body has not been "trained" to fight these pathogens.

On the other hand, the pandemic has led us to see the act of traveling as something exceptional, something that is not part of the life of the majority and that is not as anodyne as going to work, for example; there is a qualitative difference between moving around the areas we know and going to another country. This predisposes us to see the journey as the action that consists of leaving what is familiar to us; As much as in our destination we find multinationals and places similar to those of our place of origin, that is still a mirage; we really know very little about that place and we need constant help to move around it. And furthermore, we do not have the same social support network as in our country, due to barriers such as language, lack of knowledge about how the administration works, etc.

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What can we do in the face of these fears?

Fortunately, both this and all other phobias can be effectively treated and overcome with professional psychotherapeutic support. In just a few months of regular therapy sessions, it is possible to see that troubling fear fading away.

If you are interested in starting a treatment of this type, contact me.