One of the most frequent extreme fears, which is not only present in children, is the phobia of injections or trypanophobia . I’m sure we all know someone who feels this great fear of getting vaccinated or having a simple blood test done.

Trypanophobes have a really bad time when they have to get an injection and go to the health centre. And, in many cases, they can even avoid these situations without caring about risking their lives (by not getting vaccinated against diseases such as tetanus) or reducing pain or inflammation with steroids.

What is injection phobia

A phobia is an intense, irrational and persistent fear towards some situations, objects, activities or people. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive desire to avoid the stimulus that causes great anxiety, and in the case of trypanophobia, this phobic stimulus is the syringes and the possibility of receiving injections. This phobia is one of the most common, with an estimated 10% of the population suffering from it to some degree.

Sometimes, trypanophobia can be confused with a fear of blood (hematophobia) or a fear of sharp objects (aichmophobia). However, the fear of injections may only be a great fear of these objects, and people with trypanophobia do not necessarily experience a fear of blood or other sharp objects.

There are different types of phobias, which usually fall into three groups. Trypanophobia would be included within the specific phobias which are generally fears of certain objects or situations. Some specific phobic stimuli are spiders, snakes, elevators or flying.

Related article: “Types of Phobias: Exploring Fear Disorders”

Other types of phobias

In addition to this group of phobias, which are also known as simple phobias, there are two more that are social phobias , which involve other people or social situations such as performance anxiety, fear of shame or humiliation or valuing others; and agoraphobia is a fear of experiencing a panic attack in a place or situation where the person feels unprotected. These last two phobias are usually considered complex phobias.

Causes of Trypanophobia

The fear of injections usually develops during childhood and in many cases lasts into adulthood. Its cause is often a traumatic experience in childhood or adolescence, and although injections do not actually cause much pain, these people interpret it as a serious threat to their physical integrity. It is not that they believe they will die from the injection, but that the pain will be so severe that they will not even be able to endure it.

The learning of this fear usually occurs through what is known as classical conditioning, a type of associative learning that was initially investigated by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, but made famous by the behaviorist John B. Watson, who believed that human beings could learn strong emotions through conditioning and then generalize them to similar situations.

To do this he devised a series of experiments with children, and in one of them he managed to make a little boy named Albert learn to be afraid of a white rat that he initially adored. This experiment could not be carried out today because it is considered unethical. You can see it in the video below:

Other causes of this phobia

This phobia can often be developed by vicarious conditioning , i.e. by observation. For example, in the case of a child seeing an adult panic at the time of an injection, or watching a film in which injections or syringes appear.

Some theorists also think that the causes may be genetic; and others that we are predisposed to suffer from certain phobias. In fact, the latter theory states that it is easy to associate certain stimuli with fear, because this is an adaptive emotion that has helped the human species to survive. In this sense, phobic disorders are formed by primitive and non-cognitive associations , which are not easily modified by logical arguments.

Symptoms of injection fear

Fear of injections presents the same symptomatology as any phobia, where there is a predominance of anxiety and discomfort and an exaggerated attempt to avoid situations where the phobic stimulus may appear.

The symptoms of trypanophobia are:

  • cognitive symptoms : fear and anxiety in front of the syringe and the possibility of receiving an injection, anguish, confusion, lack of concentration, irrational thoughts

  • Behavioral symptoms : avoidance of any situation in which the person may receive an injection.
  • Physical symptoms : accelerated pulse, hyperventilation, stomach pain and nausea, choking sensation, dry mouth, etc.

Treatment

The treatment of phobias is similar in most cases, and psychological therapy , according to research, has a high degree of effectiveness. There are different currents that may be useful in treating trypanophobia; however, cognitive behavioral therapy seems to provide the best results.This type of therapy aims to modify the internal events (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, etc.) and behaviors that are considered to be the cause of the discomfort.

For this reason, different techniques are used, including relaxation techniques (especially indicated for specific moments in which the person experiences great anxiety) and systematic desensitization , which is a type of exposure technique in which, as its name indicates, the patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus gradually. The patient also learns different coping strategies that allow him/her to see with his/her own eyes that his/her fears are irrational.

To treat this phobia it is also possible to use Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy, which both belong to the third generation therapies, and do not aim to modify behaviours but to accept the experience, which automatically reduces the symptoms because there is no resistance to the facts. This is what the latest scientific studies conclude, which seem to indicate that this methodology is especially useful for treating anxiety disorders, because if we try to modify our internal events or behaviors, a rebound effect is produced and the anxious symptoms increase.

In specific and extreme cases, anxiolytics can be administered; however, always together with psychotherapy.