Ailurophobia

Cats intimidate opponents by arching their backs, raising their fur, turning sideways, and hissing: sometimes acting this way spreads panic amongst human beings that are highly sensitive towards them.

Ailurophobia is a type of specific phobia: the persistent, irrational fear of cats. It comes from the Greek αἴλουρος (aílouros), "cat" and φόβος (phóbos), "fear".

Synonyms include felinophobia, elurophobia, and cat phobia.

Description

The phobia manifests itself in different ways. Some sufferers experience it almost all the time, others just in response to direct stimuli. Some possible situations that can trigger the fear of cats are: hearing purring, seeing a cat in real life, imagining the possibility of a cat attack, the thought of meeting a cat in the dark, cats in pictures and on television, and cat-like toys and cat-like fur.

Treatment

There are many ways to treat ailurophobia; treatment is usually carried out by a psychiatrist or other therapy specialist.

One strongly motivated patient was able to recover by slowly becoming accustomed to cat fur by first touching varying types of velvet, then becoming accustomed to a toy kitten, and finally a live kitten which the patient subsequently adopted.

In popular culture

• The character of Ranma Saotome, from the manga/anime series Ranma ½, suffers from a severe case of ailurophobia due to a martial arts training exercise he was forced to endure in his youth.
• The character of Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) in the Universal Studios horror film The Black Cat suffers from an extreme form of ailurophobia.
• On the show My Extreme Animal Phobia, a woman has a case of ailurophobia in that she believes that cats are evil shapeshifters.
• Tetsuya Niwa, a character from the manga Gakuen Heaven, is shown to have a fear of cats.
• Gilbert Nightray from the manga/anime Pandora Hearts is afraid of cats
• Alan from the manga/anime MÄR has a fear of cats.
• In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy Van Pelt suggests to Charlie Brown that he might have a fear of cats (although she incorrectly refers to it as "ailurophasia").
• Nate Wright in the book and comic strip Big Nate written by Lincon Pierce. (He has big problems with his phobia beacause his best friend has a cat for a pet) Often he encounters them during Soccer and Baseball.

See also

• List of phobias

Further reading

• London, Louis S. (1952). "Ailurophobia and ornithophobia". Psychiatric Quarterly 26 (1): 365–371. doi:10.1007/BF01568473. PMID 14949213. 
• Crawford, Nelson Antrim (1934). "Cats Holy and Profane". Psychoanalytic Review 21: 168–179. Retrieved 9 April 2009.