Gymnophobia (fear of nudity): causes, symptoms and treatment

The nudity of the human body has been the subject of ethical and moral debates for centuries.. While some people consider it a natural state of the person, others perceive a naked human body as something ordinary or vulgar, which should not be exposed to the view of others people.

When this aversion to the perception of a naked person goes beyond the feelings of hatred or dislike and it becomes fear or exaggerated fear, we may find ourselves before a case of gymnophobia.

• Related article: "The 7 most common specific phobias"

What is gymnophobia?

Gymnophobia, also known as nudophobia, is a type of specific phobia categorized within the classification of anxiety disorders. In the case of this specific phobia, the person experiences a pathological fear of nudity, both their own and that of others.

This fear, which is experienced as an exaggerated, persistent, and irrational sensation, occurs in those who feel a pathological aversion to the possibility that they are seen naked or seeing other people, even within contexts where nudity is natural and acceptable, such as a locker room gym.

One of the most distinctive characteristics of people with gymnophobia is that, in certain cases, the response of Anxiety does not appear in a generalized way with all people, but is restricted to a small group of people. population.

In the same way, through the case study, it has been possible to verify that in many of the gymnophobia patients there is a feeling of inferiority with respect to their own body, which remains underlying the development of the phobia.

These people tend to compare their bodies with those that appear in the media and publications, in which the ideals or canons of beauty are so highly distorted images that included some natural traits of the human being are seen as imperfections, leading the person to experience high levels of distress and frustration.

This pathological terror of seeing a naked body, including one's own, can cause great interference in the most intimate levels of the person, who may deny physical or sexual contact, Due to the anxiety She is provoked by the idea of ​​having to be naked in front of someone and that someone else is in the same state of nakedness.

In the same way, a gymnophobe will avoid encountering situations that involve having to remove clothes, such as showering in a locker room with more people or even going to certain reviews medical.

Characteristics of a phobic fear

As mentioned above, gymnophobia is an anxiety disorder, so the fear experienced in it is substantially different from a normative or adaptive fear.

The main characteristics that distinguish a pathological fear from a fear considered normal are:

• Feeling of excessive and disproportionate fear compared to the real threat posed by the situation or the phobic stimulus
• It is irrational, so the person is not able to find a reasonable explanation for his reaction
• It is uncontrollable, so the person is unable to master the sensations that he experiences
• Generates avoidance and flight behaviors
• Although it only appears before the feared situation, this fear is constant through time and situations

Symptoms of fear of nudity

Despite the fact that the main symptom of gymnophobia is experiencing great fear at the appearance of the feared stimulus, in this case nudity, there are many other symptoms typical of the anxiety reaction that the person experiences.

These symptoms do not have to appear in the same way in all people with gymnophobia. However, these symptoms can be classified into three different categories, depending on whether they correspond to physical, cognitive or behavioral symptoms.

1. physical symptoms

The first symptoms that the person consciously perceives when facing the phobic stimulus are the physical symptoms. These are due to hyperactivity of the nervous system which causes all kinds of changes and alterations in the body:

• Increased heart rate
• Increased respiratory rate
• palpitations
• feeling short of breath
• Muscular stiffness
• increased sweating
• Headache
• Gastric disturbances such as stomach pain and/or diarrhea
• Nausea and/or vomiting
• Feeling dizzy or dizzy
• Fainting and loss of consciousness

2. cognitive symptoms

The physical symptoms of gymnophobia are always accompanied, in turn, by a series of cognitive symptoms that manifest through distorted and irrational thoughts about human nudity.

These ideas are characterized by being irrational and intrusive and, furthermore, may be accompanied by mental images of catastrophic content in relation to the possible dangers or threats of the stimulus phobic.

3. behavioral symptoms

As is often the case with specific phobias, the symptoms of this end up interfering or conditioning the person's own behavior patterns. These tend to alter the way in which it behaves in daily life, generating two types of responses considered as behavioral symptoms: avoidance behaviors and escape behaviors.

By avoidant behaviors we understand all those behaviors that the person with gymnophobia carries out with the aim of avoiding the feared situation or stimulus. For example, avoid entering the locker room of a gym.

However, escape behaviors originate when the subject has not been able to face the object of phobia, Therefore, he performs all possible acts or behaviors that allow him to escape the situation as soon as possible. possible.

Causes

At the beginning of the article it was commented that the basis of gymnophobia may be related to a feeling of inferiority towards one's own body, which has been enhanced or developed to become a phobia.

However, there are many other factors that can play a special role when developing a phobia, the most common being experimentation or highly traumatic experiences or with a high emotional content, in which nudity had a role more or less relevant.

Despite the fact that it can sometimes be difficult to determine the specific origin of a phobia, there are a series of mechanisms or risk factors that can favor it. These are:

• genetic elements
• Personality
• Cognitive styles
• direct conditioning
• vicarious learning

Treatment

Fortunately, there are a series of very effective treatments that, regardless of the severity in which the phobia occurs, can help reduce the person's symptoms and allow them to lead a normal rhythm and lifestyle.

In the case of gymnophobia, and of any type of specific phobia, the type of intervention that presents the most success is cognitive behavioral therapy; in which, in addition to a cognitive restructuring to eliminate distorted thoughts, live exposure techniques or systematic desensitization (SD).

In this type of technique, the patient is gradually exposed to situations related to the phobia, either directly or through imagination. Along with this, a training in relaxation techniques that allow to reduce the level of physical symptoms of anxiety.

Bibliographic references:

• Bourne, Edmund (2005). The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook, 4th ed. New Harbinger Publications.
• Wolpe, Joseph (1958). Psychotherapy by reciprocal inhibition.. Stanford University Press.