Katsaridaphobia

Katsaridaphobia
People with katsaridaphobia will feel uneasy, disgusted, and scared when seeing a cockroach
Specialty	Psychology
Symptoms	Anxiety, distress, and Severe panicking
Causes	Environmental factors
Treatment	Exposure therapy with cognitive behavioral therapy and virtual reality therapy

Katsaridaphobia is the fear of cockroaches and triggers severe panic, physical distress, and avoidance behaviors far beyond normal disgust.

Katsaridaphobia falls under the Specific phobia category since people with this phobia will feel uneasy around a cockroach, difficult breathing, rapid heart rate, panic attacks, anxiety and disgust.

Etymology

Several terms are used to describe the fear of cockroaches. The term katsaridaphobia comes from Greek κατσαρίδα katsarída which translates to cockroach and Greek φόβος phobos which translates to fear, while blattophobia is derived from the Latin scientific name Blatta, used in zoological nomenclature.

Symptoms

Common symptoms of katsaridaphobia is panic attacks, nausea, and vomiting.

• Physical symptoms: panic attacks, dizziness, difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, nausea, and vomiting.
• Emotional symptoms: crying or screaming, intense dread, panic, or terror, Freezing or feeling paralyzed upon seeing a cockroach.

Causes

The cause for katsaridaphobia is likely due to the person thinking that the cockroach is harmful, or has had past trauma from the insect, scary childhood encounters, and disgust due to the look of the cockroach.

Treatment

Exposure therapy with behavioral therapy is the only way to reduce the fear of katsaridaphobia looking at images and videos of cockroaches and using VR headsets.

See also

• Cockroach
• Entomophobia
• List of phobias