Phobias are irrational and persistent fears of objects, living beings or situations that provoke an intense desire to flee from them. If the person with a phobia cannot escape from that which produces the fear, they suffer intense anxiety and discomfort, even though they know that they are irrational and disproportionate to the real danger.

Tryphobia is an example of irrational fear that is often attributed to an innate origin. In fact, it is a particularly well-known case among rare phobias because it has become a real Internet phenomenon. Let’s see what it consists of.

What is triphobia?

The word “tryphobia” literally means “fear of holes” in Greek. The term is very recent and is even believed to have been coined in an Internet forum. More generally, it refers to anxiety caused by repetitive patterns, mainly of small, clumped holes , but also of lumps, circles or rectangles.

Typically, tryphobia is related to organic elements found in nature, such as lotus flower seeds, honeycombs, skin pores, cells, mold, corals, or pumice. Objects created by people can also generate a similar reaction; examples are sponges, airy chocolate and soap bubbles.

What the triphobic images have in common is the irregular or asymmetric configuration of the elements that compose them . People who experience this phenomenon say that they feel disgusted and uncomfortable when seeing images like these, and the greater the contrast between their elements the more unpleasant it is for them to observe them.

Unlike most phobic stimuli (elements that produce pathological fear), those that induce tryphobia in general cannot be considered dangerous or threatening. David Barlow (1988) called “false alarms” to the phobic answers that are given without the presence of threatening external stimuli, as it happens in the tripophobia.

The context: specific phobias

The DSM-5 manual includes several types of phobias under the category “Specific phobias” : panic of animals, panic of the natural environment, such as phobia of storms, situational phobias (e.g. claustrophobia) and fear of blood, wounds and injections. Agoraphobia and social anxiety or phobia have their own sections in the DSM because of their frequency and severity.

Although specific phobias are the most common anxiety disorder, they are also the least disabling, since the person can often easily avoid the phobic stimulus or rarely find it in their usual context. Extreme fear of snakes, for example, does not usually affect those who live in large cities

Among the specific phobias we find some very peculiar ones, such as the fear of money or the fear of long words, called with some malice “hypopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia” (we already mentioned these and other curious phobias in this article).

However, it must be taken into account that in the case of triphobia what generates discomfort is not a living being or a specific object , but a type of texture that can appear on practically all kinds of surfaces.

This texture is usually perceived through the visual system, and generates a response of strong aversion and distress that is irrational. However, the fact that the person is aware that the reaction is irrational does not cause it to dissipate .

Symptoms

Some people with tryphobia describe extreme reactions similar to the physiological symptoms of panic attacks, such as tremors, tachycardia, nausea or difficulty breathing . They may also experience headache and skin symptoms, such as itching and goose bumps. Of course, these symptoms also cause the person to try to get away from the phobic stimulus, either by looking away, covering their eyes or withdrawing to another place.

Unfortunately, the discomfort does not go away immediately, as the memory of the image continues to be “marked” in the consciousness, and this continues to feed the appearance of the different symptoms (although as time goes by they become weaker until the anxiety crisis passes completely).

This change in the pattern of nervous system activity in people with tryphobia usually appears when you see images with color patterns that remind you of a surface full of holes that are very close together , almost forming a mosaic of cracks. The contrast between the surface of these bodies and the darkness that indicates the degree of depth of the voids is often the property of the image that has the most power to cause discomfort.

Let us now see a classification of the symptoms of tryphophobia by distinguishing between its different types. However, usually not all of them occur at the same time, but only some of them, and in different degrees of intensity. Cases that are very extreme are rare; it is normal to notice significant discomfort without falling into a panic attack.

Physiological symptoms

Among the psychological symptoms produced by tryphophobia we find tremors, acceleration of the heart rate and muscular tension, as well as dizziness and the sensation that while exposed to the stimulus it is difficult to breathe.

Psychological symptoms

Among these psychological factors we find the entry into a state of alert and catastrophic thoughts, such as that we will have a heart attack if we continue to look at that which causes us triphobia.

Behavioral symptoms

Behavioral symptoms are, as in all specific phobias, the tendency to avoid all situations where we suspect that the phobic stimulus will make us feel bad , and once we are exposed to it, the tendency to run away.

Causes of this reaction to clustered holes

Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins (2013), psychologists from the University of Essex, found in two studies that approximately 15% of participants appeared to be sensitive to triphobic images, with this percentage being slightly higher in women than in men.

The authors attribute triphophobia to human evolution: the rejection of images similar to those of triphophobia would have been useful to us in rejecting poisonous animals , such as different types of snakes, scorpions and spiders that present repetitive patterns in their bodies.

Similarly, tripophobic reactions could have been useful in avoiding contaminants such as those that might be found in mould, open wounds or worm-holed carcasses.

Cole and Wilkins’ explanation is linked to Martin Seligman’s (1971) concept of biological preparation, better known for the theory of learned helplessness with which he explained depression.

According to Seligman, throughout evolution, living beings have not only adapted physically but also have inherited predispositions to associate certain events because they increased our ancestors’ chances of survival. For example, people would be especially prepared to associate danger with darkness or insects. The irrationality of phobias would be explained because they have a biological, not a cognitive, origin.

Alternative explanations for this irrational anxiety

Other experts offer very different hypotheses about tryphobia. In an interview with NPR, University of California anxiety psychiatrist Carol Matthews said that while any object is susceptible to pathological fear, it is possible that the case of triphophobia is more suggestive .

According to Matthews, people who read about tryphobia are often prompted by others who claim to have felt anxious reactions when seeing the same images and pay attention to bodily sensations that their mind would otherwise filter out or ignore.

If we are asked if an image makes us feel disgust or itchiness we are more likely to feel those sensations than if we had not been told anything; this is known as the “priming effect”.

Even if we feel real disgust or anxiety when seeing tripophobic images, if they are not intense or frequent enough to interfere with our lives, we cannot consider that we have a “hole phobia”. It is important to take this into account, because for fear to be considered a phobia (pathological fear) it is necessary for it to significantly harm the person who suffers it.

How to overcome this phobia?

As we have seen, a certain degree of triphobia is normal in most people; we seem to be “designed” to feel at least a little anxiety and discomfort when looking at surfaces full of holes very close together.

However, in the same way that individual differences in personal traits such as height or strength occur to different degrees between members of our species, in certain cases tryphobia can become so intense that it becomes an impediment to leading a normal life . As is always the case with psychological phenomena, there are different degrees of intensity.

In these cases, it is advisable to go to psychological therapy, which will allow us to learn dynamics to better manage the symptoms and make their impact lessened.

There are several ways to resolve the anxiety caused by this type of phobia. Some patients may require only one or several of these treatments. In either case, they should be referred to a mental health professional, preferably one who specializes in this type of disorder.

1. Psychological treatment

Specific phobias are mainly treated by means of exposure procedures , which consist of facing up to that which causes us fear, anxiety or disgust and encourages us to escape. For the treatment by exposure to be effective, the person must pay attention to the phobic stimulus while exposed to it, which will progressively reduce the discomfort it causes.

It is a procedure in which the person gradually gains autonomy, although especially during the first phases of the procedure, the role of the therapist is of great importance for adequate progress.

In addition, it is important that to go through this process is very important commitment of patients , since they must strive to progress and face situations of discomfort. Fortunately, motivation is also part of the role of the therapists, who will also work on the way patients perceive the tryphobia they experience.

2. Pharmacological treatment

Pharmacological treatment has shown little efficacy in overcoming specific phobias; exposure and other variants of psychological intervention focusing on interaction with phobic stimuli are primarily recommended. In contrast, medication may be useful for agoraphobia and social phobia, particularly anxiolytics and antidepressants. Since the latter is not the case with triphobia, psychotherapy concentrates most of the effort, and only if the discomfort is extreme.

However, this does not mean that in certain specific cases healthcare personnel will avoid the use of drugs in all cases. There are some circumstances in which they may be useful, especially if the triphophobia overlaps with other psychological disorders; in any case, the indication or not of medicines is subject to the criteria of the professionals who supervise each patient in a particular way.

3. Exposure therapy

People with triphophobia, whether severe or irrelevant, can reduce the discomfort caused by this phenomenon by exposing themselves to the triphophobic images . The exposure can be applied gradually, that is, starting with images that cause moderate anxiety or disgust and progressively increasing the intensity of the phobic stimuli.

The well-known Pewdiepie youtuber has recently been recorded “curing his triphobia” by means of a kind of computer-assisted self-exposure. Some of the images it uses are microbes, human skins with holes and worms coming out of a dog’s back. It doesn’t seem that you need to have triphobia to be disgusted by images like these.

Bibliographic references:

  • Barlow, D. H. (1988). Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and Panic. New York: Guilford Press.
  • Cole, G. G. & Wilkins, A. J. (2013). Fear of holes. Psychological Science, 24(10), 1980-1985.
  • Doucleff, M. (February 13, 2013). Fear of cantaloupes and crumpets? A ‘phobia’ rises from the web. NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org.
  • Le, A. T. D., Cole, G. G. & Wilkins, A. J. (2015). Assessment of trypophobia and an analysis of its visual precipitation. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(11), 2304-2322.
  • Seligman, M. E. P. (1971). Phobias and preparedness. Behavior Therapy, 2(3), 307-320.