Fear of clocks (chronometrophobia): causes and symptoms

Human beings can develop fears of anything and sometimes these fears are irrational and persistent. It is what is known as phobia, a disorder that usually develops as a result of a traumatic experience in the past..

Phobias are of many types. Some of them very strange as we explained in our article “The 15 rarest phobias that exist”. And it is that some phobic disorders can surprise many people due to the harmlessness of the feared stimulus. A clear example is chronometrophobia or fear of clocks.

Surely many readers wonder, "how is it possible that this device so useful and not very dangerous causes fear?" In this article we will answer this question and delve into the causes, symptoms and treatment of this disorder.

What is chronometrophobia

As we said at the beginning of the article, there are many types of phobias. You can check it in our article “Types of phobias: exploring fear disorders”.

These irrational fears can be classified into social phobias, agoraphobia, or specific or simple phobias. The latter are distinguished from the former because the phobic stimulus is an object, an activity, a situation, or an animal. The

phobia of clowns (coulrophobia), to dogs (cynophobia) and as, the phobia of watches (chronometrophobia) belong to this type of phobias.

Phobias are included in the group of anxiety disorders, so anxiety, in addition to extreme fear, is one of the characteristic symptoms of this disorder. People who suffer from chronometrophobia, in the presence of watches or their imagination, feel extreme fear, anxiety, confusion, the need to avoid the feared stimulus and many other symptoms that cause discomfort.

The relationship of this phobia with the fear of the passage of time or chronophobia

Clocks are objects that tell us the time and that allow us to know the temporal moment in which we are. For the life of the current human being, these devices are very useful.

But some people develop these phobias for different reasons. In some cases, this phobia is associated with chronophobia or fear of the passage of time.. This disorder is complex, and according to experts, older people and individuals in prison experience it more commonly. In the case of prisoners, this disorder is called "prison neurosis."

• If you want to delve into this pathology, you can read our article: "Chronophobia (fear of the passage of time): causes, symptoms and treatment"

Causes of the phobia of watches

But the phobia of watches does not only appear as a consequence of chronophobia. The most common cause is as a consequence of a traumatic experience, generally during childhood.. Chronometrophobia develops through classical conditioning, as it occurs through the association of a stimulus that initially elicits a reflex fear response and one that originally did not. causes. This last stimulus is called a neutral stimulus. After these stimuli are presented together, and as a result of the traumatic experience, the neutral stimulus can elicit a fear response.

Ivan Pavlov he originally investigated this phenomenon; however, the first researcher who managed to develop a phobia in humans was john b. Watson, an American psychologist who conducted a series of studies that today are considered unethical.

• To deepen this topic, you can read our article "Classical conditioning and its most important experiments"

Symptoms

However, this phobia also has an effect on the behavior of the subject, who, in the presence of watches, tends to avoid them. Other characteristic symptoms, known as physical symptoms, are:

• Accelerated heartbeat.
• Incrise of cardiac frecuency.
• Feeling short of breath and hyperventilation.
• hypersudation
• Dry mouth.
• intestinal upset
• Headache.
• Tension in the muscles.

Treatment

Anxiety disorders are very frequent reasons for consultation in Psychology clinics. Among these are phobias, which cause great discomfort. Patients are often aware of the problem they are suffering from, but fear is an emotion that takes place in the primitive brain and not in the neocortex (rational brain) so phobias do not usually respond to logical arguments. The best way to treat a phobia is thanks to exposure therapy, which belongs to the therapeutic model known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

CBT is a form of psychotherapy that has given many results, and that includes other useful techniques for the treatment of phobias, such as relaxation techniques, which help the patient to control the symptoms of this pathology.

One of the most widely used techniques is systematic desensitization, which includes the two previous ones, and which consists of gradually exposing the patient to phobic stimuli.. This means that, for example, first the patient is exposed to photographs in which they appear watches, so that later, in the last stages of the treatment, they can have direct contact with the stimulus feared.

Other types of therapy are being used successfully today. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy are some examples. Also, as we explained in our article “8 apps to treat phobias and fears from your smartphone”, new technologies are also at the service of treating phobic disorders.