Batophobia: (fear of depth): symptoms and treatment

Are you completely unable to bathe in deep water? Do you feel great anguish just thinking about putting your feet in a deep well? Although these reactions are usually completely normal in most cases, they perfectly describe how a person with bathophobia feels.

Throughout this article We will talk about this anxiety disorder known as bathophobia. We will describe its symptoms, its causes and what are the professional techniques and interventions to treat it.

• Related article: "Types of Phobias: Exploring Fear Disorders"

What is bathophobia?

Like the rest of the phobias, bathophobia is an anxiety disorder in which the person experiences an intense terror of the depths or those situations in which you cannot see the lower part of your body due to depth or darkness.

Those spaces or situations in which the person can experience this fear can be swimming pools, the sea, the bottom of a well, etc. That is to say, spaces that convey a sense of depth.

It is necessary to specify that the fear or fear of deep spaces is completely habitual, natural and fulfills an adaptive function. So a person who suffers from this type of concern does not always have to suffer from a phobia. However, in cases where the person experiences

crippling anxiety that you cannot control and has no rational basis; it would be considered bathophobia.

• You may be interested in: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

What symptoms does bathophobia present?

As discussed above, bathophobia is classified within anxiety disorders, so exposure to the phobic situation or stimulus will trigger an extreme anxiety response.

Like the rest of the phobias, the symptoms are divided into three sets: physical symptoms, cognitive symptoms, and behavioral symptoms. However, although most people experience the same symptoms, this phobia presents great variability between people.

The main symptoms include those that we will see below.

physical symptoms

• Acceleration of heart rate.
• Increased respiration rate.
• hyperhidrosis
• High blood pressure.
• Elevated muscle tone.
• nausea and vomiting.
• Stomachache.
• Shaking chills.
• Choking sensation.

cognitive symptoms

• Catastrophic thoughts.
• Feeling of lack of control.

behavioral symptoms

• exhaust pipes.
• Avoidance behaviors.

Usually, the symptoms subside once the phobic stimulus has disappeared. Nevertheless, this will depend on the intensity with which the living person experiences bathophobia, since in some cases the level of anxiety increases only when thinking about these very deep places.

What causes bathophobia?

There is no completely reliable way to determine the origin of a phobia. In most cases, a genetic predisposition linked to a traumatic or emotionally charged experience ends up causing a phobia to one of the elements that involved the experience.

For example, a person who has experienced a shipwreck or a traumatic experience somewhere deep is susceptible to developing bathophobia. However, it does not always have to be that way, since there are a large number of factors such as personality or even the environment, which facilitate its appearance.

How is this phobia diagnosed?

In most cases, bathophobia remains undiagnosed, since people who suffer from it do not usually habitually encounter these situations, so the phobia does not interfere too much in daily life this.

However, in cases in which the person suffering from photophobia does have to face these situations, it is necessary to perform an appropriate assessment that meets the diagnostic criteria established.

Given the large number of phobias that currently exist, it has not been possible to establish a specific diagnostic protocol for each of them. Nevertheless, there are a number of diagnostic criteria common to all of these specific anxiety disorders.

When the professional prepares to evaluate the patient, he must take into account the following aspects of the diagnosis:

• Feeling of fear and immediate anxiety response to the appearance of the phobic stimulus. In this case the depths.
• The person carries out avoidance or escape behaviors when faced with the feared stimulus or situation.
• The experimentation of fear is valued as disproportionate considering the real danger.
• The fear appears for more than six months each time the person is exposed.
• The symptoms and their consequences generate clinically significant discomfort.
• The phobia and its symptoms interfere with the patient's life.
• The symptomatology cannot be better explained by any other disease or mental disorder.

Is there a treatment?

With proper diagnosis and treatment, both bathophobia and any other type of anxiety disorder can almost completely remit.

Usually, the treatment of choice to help people with this type of disorder It is based on intervention through psychotherapy, always in the hands of a professional in psychology..

Within these psychotherapies, cognitive behavioral treatment is the one that has stood out for presenting greater efficacy and speed when symptoms subside. However, there are a large number of interventions and therapies that, carried out correctly and always by the hand of an expert, they can also offer satisfactory results.

Within the treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy, the following actions can be carried out.

1. live exhibition

The avoidance carried out by people with batophobia, or with any type of anxiety disorder, is the first reason why it is maintained over time. Therefore, through live exposure, the patient is confronted with the feared situation or the phobic stimulus.

However, it is necessary that this exhibition is always conducted by a professional.

• Related article: "Intervention in phobias: the exposure technique"

2. systematic desensitization

When the anxiety response is so extreme that an in vivo exposure cannot be carried out, an intervention will be carried out by systematic desensitization. With this technique that the patient is gradually exposed to the phobic stimulus.

3. relaxation techniques

It is essential that both in vivo exposure intervention and routine desensitization be accompanied by training in relaxation techniques that decreases the patient's state of alertness and facilitate their approach to the feared stimulus.

• Related article: "6 easy relaxation techniques to combat stress"

4. cognitive therapy

Since an essential component of phobias are the distorted thoughts that exist about the phobic stimulus, It is essential to use cognitive therapy to help eliminate them.