Scriptophobia is a rare phobia ; it consists of the irrational fear of writing in front of other people or in public situations.

Although it may seem a somewhat strange phobia, the truth is that not few people, especially students, manifest it. We will discuss it in more detail below.

What is scribtophobia?

Scriptophobia is the extreme fear of writing in public (from Latin “scripto”, “to write” and “phobos”, “fear, fear”). It is considered a phobia that has the characteristics to be considered also a specific form of social anxiety. Like other phobias, it produces feelings of stress, anxiety, and suffering in the sufferer.

Although it may seem a very rare specific phobia, it actually affects thousands of people around the world, even without them knowing that they have a problem that prevents them from leading a normal life. The others who know they have a problem recognize that their phobia is irrational, but they still have serious difficulties in coping adaptively with situations where they have to write in front of others.

Some of the situations that are especially problematic for scribtophobes are: taking a job where you have to write in front of other people (e.g. teacher, notary,…), taking notes in class, giving a phone number on paper, signing a contract…

Graphophobia is another phobia closely related to scribtophobia, with a similar definition, although it is more specific. In this case, it would be an extreme and irrational fear of handwriting.

Symptomatology

The symptoms of cryptophobia are very similar to those of other phobias, but they occur when a person has to write something in front of others. They occur automatically and become uncontrollable, either because you are in a situation where you have to write in front of other people or because you think about possible situations of this type without being in one of them.

People with this phobia try to avoid any situation where they have to write in front of other people . In fact, in some cases the phobia is so serious that the person only dares to write at night, without anyone at home being awake and without the situation that they might find themselves writing. If he or she is of student age, it is likely that the person will skip classes with the intention of avoiding being seen writing at all costs.

The most noticeable physiological symptoms are dry mouth, palpitations, dizziness, sensation of needles in the skin, headaches and in the rest of the body, excessive sweating, nausea, lack of breath and fatigue.

As for the more psychological area, we have problems relaxing, mood swings, fear, anxiety, stress and thinking that you are going to make a fool of yourself or that you are not going to be able to get out of this without feeling humiliated.

Possible causes

Usually, the fear of writing in front of others is caused by the experience of a negative event at some point in life that was related to this . In many cases, scribtophobes are afraid of making a fool of themselves when they write or that people will think their handwriting is ugly. Often those with this phobia have experienced a time when they were teased for their handwriting or for spelling mistakes. This may have been experienced with such intensity that it has encouraged the person to suffer panic attacks.

There are people who see in their writing an act similar to that of a naked person. That is to say, there are those who have the feeling that writing on a piece of paper is a way of expressing their intimacy , either by doing it in the form of words explicitly related to this idea (e.g., a personal diary) or because their way of writing is taken as something very personal that, if someone else sees it, it is as if they were looking inside, and they don’t like it.

It may seem a bit of a far-fetched explanation, but the truth is that there are quite a few people who would manifest this phobia because of this fact.

Treatment

As with all phobias, treatments for script phobia are mostly cognitive-behavioral in nature and often share features with other treatments for anxiety disorders. Exposure to the phobic situation, in this case the act of writing in front of other people, tends to be the main method for working on the phobia , although progressively and always with the security that comes from consulting the professional.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure

Cognitive-behavioral therapies have defended the idea that many phobias, especially those such as script phobia and other contextual phobias, are due to a style of thinking that harms the person. Thinking that one is going to make a fool of oneself for writing makes the person imagine the worst case scenario , which causes feelings of anxiety.

In therapy, you try to get the person to explain exactly why he or she thinks he or she is going to make a fool of himself or herself or why he or she thinks others might laugh at him or her. It’s about addressing the type of thinking and changing it so that the anxious feelings aren’t so high.

It is also in this type of therapy that we try to get the person used to writing in front of other people. This would first be done in front of the therapist, or, if the person feels safe with a family member or friend, have them come to therapy and participate in the treatment under the direction of the professional.

Psychoanalysis

Psychodynamic therapy takes into account the events and influences throughout the patient’s life that have contributed to the feeling of sceptophobia, as well as taking into account their personality traits and seeing to what extent they have contributed to the formation of this anxiety disorder.

The main objective of psychoanalytic therapy is to help the person explore, understand and come to terms with the causes of their phobia.

Other options

While the alternatives we are going to discuss are not treatments and the person would still have a phobic disorder, in fact, they could be considered avoidance behaviors, the truth is that they would serve to initiate therapy or at least facilitate better well-being before seeking help from the professional.

As we have already seen, some scribtophobes are afraid to write in front of others because they do not think their type of writing is pleasant or they are afraid of making spelling mistakes . These are the simplest cases, since going to classes to improve handwriting, as well as being more careful about writing and avoiding making mistakes would be behaviors that would significantly help the writing process.

Also, because we live in a highly computerized society, you can choose to write on the computer or any other electronic device with a keyboard. Word processors contain spell-checkers that detect spelling mistakes, and you can change the font and size.

Obviously, scribtophobia does not involve the simple fear of writing manually in front of other people . There are many other aspects to take into account that make the person unable to do this, such as feeling observed, being afraid of making a fool of oneself, thinking about what others might be thinking…

That is why the alternatives set out in this section, as we have already mentioned, are not a treatment in themselves, but simple ways of improving the course of the disorder before going to a professional, since they help the person to take some control over his problem.

Bibliographic references:

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Association.
  • Bados, A.(2009). Specific phobias: Nature, evaluation and treatment. Electronic publication.