The human being is a gregarious animal, which needs social contact to survive and thrive in life. Family, partner, friends… all of these are part of our life and are of great importance in all stages of life. Although sometimes we may need to be alone and some people do not need continuous contact, most human beings need and enjoy the company of others.

Thus, the idea of a prolonged solitude in time is something that generates certain discomfort and suffering. However, some people develop a phobia or panic that is disproportionate to the idea of being alone, even for short periods, and they suffer panic attacks and physiological symptoms in the face of this fear. This is what happens to people with erythemophobia .

Phobia of loneliness: eremophobia

Erymophobia is defined as a phobia of loneliness. Erymophobia would be classified as a specific situational phobia , that is, what produces fear would not be a specific physical element (like a spider or lightning) but a situation or state in which the subject is or can be found: in this case, being alone.

As a phobia, it is a psychological disorder in which an irrational and disproportionate fear appears (the consideration of this irrationality being often recognized by the subject) towards a stimulus or concrete situation, in this case being alone.

This fear is so intense that the fact of facing the phobic stimulus or the mere idea of doing so generates such anxiety that it is capable of generating alterations such as cold sweats, dizziness, headaches, tachycardia or respiratory problems , something that also generates an active avoidance or escape from such a situation or stimulus or from that which may remind us of it.

In eremophobia the fear is generally towards loneliness, being habitual that the fear is given to remain physically alone although also it usually includes the idea of feeling alone in spite of being surrounded by people.

In this specific case, rumination and obsessive thoughts also tend to appear, with the possibility of being left alone, clouding the capacity for judgment and rationalization and feeling great anxiety at all times. Even in events in which one is accompanied it is common for the anticipatory thought to appear that one is going to be left alone . The possibility of being alone with strangers can also generate anxious responses, and it is not necessary for the solitude to be physical.

Symptoms

This level of fear of loneliness can be very disabling, requiring the person to be constantly attentive or accompanied and greatly limiting their daily functioning.

Social contact with family, partners and friends may deteriorate, as may leisure time and work performance (although this will depend on the type of job in question). The person concerned will avoid at all costs being left alone, and may in extreme cases become totally dependent on the company of others. In this way, they will usually seek to meet or keep each other company at all times.

In extreme cases, this can generate histrionic, theatrical behaviour and even the pretence of illness in order to manipulate his environment, something that once detected will generally generate a distance from the environment and an increasing isolation of the subject (something totally contrary to what the subject intends).

It is also likely that they will adopt a position of emotional dependence towards their environment, regardless of how it treats them, as long as they are not left alone. In fact, beyond the very suffering that this phobia generates, one of its most serious possible risks is that the fear of being left alone can lead to accepting degrading treatment and even situations of abuse in any of the areas of life, including harassment at work, sexual harassment or even violence by a partner. In some cases, fear and despair, irritability and even aggression may also arise if they are tried to be left alone.

Possible causes

The specific causes of the emergence of this phobia are not fully known, although several hypotheses have been developed. Firstly, it should be mentioned that the fear of loneliness is common in almost all people, and this normative fear should be distinguished from the existence of a phobia.

One of the theories in this respect tells us that there are some phobias that come from stimuli and situations that we are pre-programmed to fear , being a product of the evolution of the species. If we think for example of the phobia of insects or snakes, we can imagine that in ancient times this fear and flight from such stimuli was adaptive since they posed a real threat to our survival. In the case of loneliness the same thing happens: in prehistoric times a person would only be an easy victim of a predator, being the capacity of defense or acquisition of food very diminished.

Thus, those who remained in the group and were afraid to be alone had an easier time surviving, passing this trait on to the next generations. If we add to this inherited tendency the existence of some kind of stress or threatening situation linked to being alone, we have a probable breeding ground for the appearance of a phobia or personality disorders such as dependent or histrionic.

Another theory indicates that this phobia is acquired by conditioning: at some point in life loneliness has been associated with a traumatic event or with the feeling of helplessness and lack of control of our life, and subsequently the fear generated by that moment becomes generalised to any situation related to loneliness. Frequent examples are the cases of children abandoned in childhood by their parents, abandoned or those who are orphaned at an early age. Bullying or not being able to build strong friendships can also lead to fear of being left alone.

It is also important to note that as a rule, eremophobia usually appears, as with social phobia, during adolescence and identity formation. In this stage, the deprivation of the company of others or the perception of non-acceptance by others makes it difficult to acquire a solid identity , something that in the long run will make it unviable for us to be alone with ourselves and to need the company of someone to feel complete. It is also common for this type of phobia to occur in people with poor social skills, lack of self-confidence, insecurity and low self-esteem.

It is also necessary to take into account that the fear of loneliness at the bottom can be transmitting a fear of death, of not being able to get ahead on one’s own, of failure or of not achieving vital goals (one of which is often that of having a family or social success).

Treatment

Erymophobia is a highly disabling problem for those who suffer from it, but fortunately it is a disorder that can be treated through psychotherapy .

First it will be necessary to explore what the subject fears from loneliness or the ideas or conceptions he has about it. It will also be necessary to work on the reason for the need for company, at what moment the patient believes that the fear originated and why, what meaning he gives to the phobia and the expectations and beliefs he has about himself and the world or his future.

This being so, it may be advisable to apply therapeutic resources such as cognitive restructuring in order to work on the subject’s beliefs and try to generate explanations about reality and oneself that are more adaptive than those maintained up to now, as well as expectations and demands both with regard to oneself and the environment.

It will also be useful to work on stress management, social and problem-solving skills , self-esteem and the feeling of self-efficacy and autonomy , all of which are vital in this type of phobia.

Likewise, and as in almost all phobias, the most effective method in the treatment of phobic symptoms (not so much in its causes, something that should be worked on with methodologies such as the previous ones) is exposure. The aim is to make the subject undergo a gradual exposure to solitude, after agreeing with the therapist on a hierarchy of items linked to it to which he will gradually be subjected. It may also be useful to employ response prevention, that is, the subject should avoid seeking company at the moment of the appearance of anxiety.

Bibliographic references:

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Fifth edition. DSM-V. Masson, Barcelona.
  • Bados, A. (2005). Specific phobias. University of Barcelona. Faculty of Psychology. Departament de Personalitat, Avaluació i Tractament Psicològics.