Psychologists use the term phobia, which comes from the Greek for fear, for a number of psychologic conditions that can seriously disable their carriers.
The name of a phobia contains a Greek word for what the patient fears plus -phobia; common phobias include these:
- acrophobia, fear of heights
- arachnophobia, fear of spiders
- agoraphobia, fear of open places, from agora = public square
- aleurophobia, fear of cats
- claustrophobia, fear of small spaces
Psychiatrists often use virtual reality to desensitize patients to the feared thing.
In some cases, however, a fear or hatred is only based on ignorance; psychologists do not classify these as true phobias.
- homophobia, fear of homosexual people
- xenophobia, fear of strangers or the unknown
See also angst, anxiety, disabilities