Panphobia
Panphobia (from Greek πᾶν - pan, neuter of "πᾶς" - pas, "all"[1] and φόβος - phobos, "fear"[2]) also called omniphobia, pantophobia, or panophobia, is a phobia known as a "non-specific fear" or "the fear of everything", and is described as "a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil."[3] Panphobia is not registered as a type of phobia in medical references.
History
The term panphobia was first coined by Théodule-Armand Ribot[4] in his 1911 work The Psychology of the Emotions and is eloquently defined as “a state in which a patient fears everything or nothing, where anxiety, instead of being riveted on one object, floats as in a dream, and only becomes fixed for an instant at a time, passing from one object to another, as circumstances may determine.” It has been argued that pantophobia may actually be considered the more accurate name to describe the non-specificity associated with a fear of all.[4]
Origin
The significance of the root word pan (ex. pan-ic) comes from the Greek language and describes "the unpleasant state inflicted by the intervention of the god Pan."[4] Pan is characterized as a human-animal hybrid who "appeared as the agent of "panic" fear (that collective, animal-like disorder that seizes military camps at rest, especially at night) and of a form of individual possession (panolepsy).”[5] According to Herodotus, it was Pan who was able to lead the Athenians to victory in the Battle of Marathon, forcing the “flight" of the Persians, and sourcing the more colloquial phrase “fight or flight” as it refers to one’s fear response being to either facing or avoidance of fear.[4] Pan was also considered a shepherd, which further shows his association with panic in that his power came from conquering the characteristically irrational response.
Diagnosis
There is no specific phobia in the DSM-V which provides criteria for an all-encompassing fear of everything, though the defining symptom for Generalized Anxiety Disorder in this manual is “excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation) about a number of events or activities.” Relevant academic literature may point to panphobia as merely a piece of a more complex state of mental disorder. Pseudoneurotic schizophrenia may be diagnosable in patients who, in addition to panphobia, also exhibit symptoms of pananxiety, panambivalence, and to a lesser extent, chaotic sexuality.[6] These persons differ from generalized anxiety sufferers in that they have “free-floating anxiety that rarely subsides” and are clinically diagnosable as having Borderline Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV-TR. No significant changes related to this personality disorder were made in transitioning to the DSM-V, suggesting the diagnostic criteria are still appropriate.[7]
See also
- List of phobias
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Pseudoneurotic schizophrenia
- A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2011 British film)
References
- ^ πᾶς, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
- ^ φόβος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
- ^ Dorland, W. (2007). Dorland’s medical dictionary for health consumers. Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier.
- ^ a b c d Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi:10.1177/0957154X030142004, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with
|doi=10.1177/0957154X030142004instead. - ^ Jones, Lindsay. "Encyclopedia of Religion". Gale, Cengage Learning. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
- ^ Sadock, Benjamin James Sadock ; Virginia Alcott (2007). Kaplan & Sadock's synopsis of psychiatry : behavioral sciences/clinical psychiatry (10th ed. ed.). Philadelphia: Wolter Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 479. ISBN 078177327X.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Highlights of Changes from DSM-IV-TR to DSM-5" (PDF). American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved 9 April 2014.