What Are the Causes of Emetophobia – The Fear of Vomiting?
The word emetophobia itself is derived from the Greek word ’emesis’ which stands for vomiting, while the suffix -phobia means an illogical, debilitating fear of an object or situation. People who suffer from this condition are called emetophobes, and it simply means they are terrified of vomiting or seeing vomit or seeing someone else vomit (even on a photo or on television). The fear may extend to stimuli which are related to the feared object – such as simply being in a situation where such a threat exists, and being afraid of being sick in general. It is the overly general fear of the threat of vomiting in a wide variety of situations that causes the most problems to sufferers. One common example is needing to control how food is prepared and needing it to be clean. There is very little awareness of this phobia in the public consciousness. This despite being among the most common phobias, the 5th most common according to one estimate. Emetophobics are deeply embarrassed over being a
