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Episode 2 · 2 years ago
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Episode 2 · 2 years ago
Halloween Phobia's BBC Oxford
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Of course, at coming up after twelve midday. But in the meantime, May I remind you it's Halloween. Halloween wouldn't be Halloween without that laugh. Nowaday when we celebrate the creepy and become fascinated by the frightening. But it's not all fun and Games, noe. For some people, Halloween can be a time when they are forced to come face to face with their fears and their phobias, everything from spiders to fake blood. Two fears of people in masks. So what do you do if you suffer from Sam Hame, a phobia that's a phobia of all things Halloween? Hopefully I will have some answers. You Actually Call Christopher Paul Jones. That's who you call the breakthrough expert, the summer fanmer Sam now Sam Hanophobia Buster. That's why I'm going to call you Christopher. That's a great name, some thing like that. Put that my website. Yeah, absolutely, if he wants to be a Ghostbuster,...
...when you can be as Sam Hanophobia. But exactly. Yeah, so, so, I mean this is just a fear of Halloween and everything that goes with Halloween? I guess. Yes, absolutely. I mean there's so many scary elements that make up Halloween that can trigger people's Phobias, and I guess that's kind of the point of Halloween really. It's too scare people. But when you have a phobia, it can it can be terrifying, you know. I mean, does this start because you perhaps had a phobia that you wanted to overcome? Of It all, are you absolutely fine with with everything on Halloween? Me? Actually, no, I did have phobias. That's how I got into phobia work. But with Halloween, I loved it, mainly because my mum hated it and I think I just rebelled. So, so I yeah, so I loved Halloween. Actually, it's the one type, one thing I didn't really have any fears of, with the exception of snakes. Actually, I didn't really like snakes as a child, so I still don't. I still have. Okay, a snake phobia site, I guess. Yes, I have the PIDIOPHOBIA. I think that's what fear...
...of snakes. It's a fit, yes, of Phidiophobia. Very good. Yes, yeah, it's amazing how many people like to use the Latin when they have a phobia. Yeah, so when the key with any of these phobias is really is something's happened in your childhood. For the most part, the exception of loud noises like fear of thunder and lightning, something's happened in your childhood. You've had a trigger and it's created a fear. So that's being made to be jumped by a mask or watching your parents jump on a chair when they saw a spider, and in that moment your brain goes Oh, I should be afraid of that, and then that carries with you into later life and you're not even necessarily consciously aware of what started it. But when you see those plastic spiders at Halloween, or even a representation sometimes like the cobwebs, it can set someone off. It's a I've got less of cobwebs around my house, so you know I'm what used to those. Clearly no face. Well, it's the one. It's the one time of year you can you can pretend it's deliberate really. Yeah, a friend of mine,...
...actually she was she went to her mother's house and near Ambury and she said, mother, look all the COBWEBS, look at all the cobwebs all over the house, and her mother simply said to her don't worry, Darling, I'm spraying them for Halloween, which was a great retort, fantastic, but I mean that there aren't many, many people that she's quite a common. Fear of spot isn't a Rachnophobia? Yes, a Rachnophobia sort of. Twenty percent of men, the precording to some studies, and fifty percent of women have a fear of flight, fear of spiders. So yeah, it's a very common one actually, and it seems that it doesn't read. It's not logical. Like most phobias, there are rational fears because, as many people have it in England, where there aren't really any harmful spiders, as they do in Australia or places where there are, you know, Africa, where there are actually dangerous spiders. So it's nothing necessarily to do with the relative effect of harm. It's more to do with the Association in the brain...
...that just links danger to it, you know, and that's our survivor response. It's a useful thing to have, except for when it becomes overly programmed. So you're running a mile when you see a tiny money spider or you a plastic spider or a cobweb or you know, here that. Yeah, see, see a toy in a shop. You know, you said that often these phobias are they go back to something that happened in our child had you said as yet that you, like me, have a phobia of snakes? What happened in your childhood? I think with that one it was I did grow out of that one. Actually, I didn't need to do any work on that, but it was watching a movie, I believe, watching a movie as a childhood, when I when I worked on myself, and that was enough as a six year old or seven year old to see us snake can go oh and link fear to it. And Yeah, so that that's what happened with me. Some people it's also the look of them, you know, spiders and snakes. It's the movement that can just because they're...
...so alien in the way they moved, so unnatural, that it can create fear. And that's that's also true with a lot of phobias. If something doesn't look quite right when you're young and you don't have the understanding to be able to rationalize it, it can create a phobia. You can great that appear to avoid. I think you're right. It was. It was just sort of the texture of a snake and a sort of slithery you know, because you expect actually, because I don't even like worms, I wouldn't pick up a worm, you know. I wouldn't pick up a bir constructor or a worm. Okay, so how? How? How afraid are you? Is it a fear or is it a phobia? Because there is a difference, and time mix the too, by the way. Well, as she thought of that before, but actually I thought this is ridiculous. But you know, I have to somehow overcome this because I'm also, you know, there's a bit of me that's quite fascinated by snakes as well. And and a few months ago I actually touched a python. Ah, well, done, so and and and that sort of helps a little bit, because then I realize that actually they're very dry. They're not like slippery and slimy like...
...a worm. In fact, are very good. So did that that reduce your phobia? Did that help? Well, I still wouldn't want want to be in a room with a python or a buck. Okay, no, not not really, but I dis it's fish as well. I have a real phobia of fish. I won't go into the sea if I know that they are efficient. Okay, which why presents how your problems. I mean, I don't know if I want to I want to get into intervention here, but you know, if you want to work on it, I can explore it. But that's an interesting thing. So it's a fear. It's so that's a great example of sort of associative fear. So it's not necessarily the thing itself. It's the fear of the sliminess. So I worms fish. So something's going to happen in your childhood, maybe being made to eat food that you didn't like, where you create repulsion about the sliminess of it. So there's all sorts of different things that can trigger that phobia. So it'd be interesting to track you back to the first event find what that was it. It can get in the way of a good holiday sometimes because I have to go and stake out, you know, if I'm visiting a new beach, I have to go and stake it out and look for the fish.
Okay, do you have it? If you have a memory of when that started? I'm generally not going to go to intervention, but I'm just curious. You know, when you first dislike the feeling of slimy things. Well, I think I think it was. Actually when it reverts back to this is the only thing that I can sort of sort of associated with, but I think it reverts back to a holiday in Greece when I was fourteen with my parents and I remember my mother swimming out because I was I had a snork out of mask and SNORKELM and I'm and my mother was swimming out and there was quite a shelf actually, so you know it's very, very deep. First or of very early on, in short, at the shore line, yes, and I remember looking under the water and seeing this great big fish swim under my mother's tummy and just thinking, I don't know, maybe it's sides, perhaps something to do with that. I'm not really sure, but at that point I just didn't like the water. I wouldn't go in with that flippers. Okay, okay, so one of the things I'd get you to do if you were working with me, which we're not, is I'd get you to replay that movie in your head, but this time...
...play it with some Benny Hill music through and see if that changes. I'm sure that would help. Oh Yes, I'm sure I'll I'll try that later, but I mean how common is is Masco Phobia, because you know, this is if we talk about Halloween, of course, which we are. Will Get back on topic. Yeah, not talk about my phobias, but MSK, Maskaphobia, fear of musk. Lot of people wearing masks, I would imagine tonight. Yes, I mean mascophobia. It's not the most common of all of them, but I think if it's going to be created any time, it is going to be Halloween, because it's not just you know, other times you're wearing a nice mask for a ball or something. These are designed to be horrific. They have blood on them or you look like a devil or you have scary eyes. So of course, if a child was made to jump by them, as you know, that's going to affect them and cause the fear, I say, later life. So yeah, it is. It is a bad time for anyone with a mask phobia. Yeah, and it's also the other thing about masks is if as a child,...
...or it doesn't have to be a child, but it normally is, because the face doesn't move, even if it's a fixed smile. Again, as a young child, you get's looks out the ordinary and so something's not right and and the child goes Oh, avoid, and then it creates that fear in the subconscious mind. Basically. So if you worked with many people that have NCTOPHOBIA, fear of the dark, that's quite a common one. Yes, it's more more often associated with Claustrophobia, the idea of being trapped, so the idea of not being out to get out, not being out to see a way through. So that that is that is normally those two often are linked. Actually they often both go together. And Yeah, it's again it's primeval as well. You know, if if you're sitting in your bed and you're seeing the street lights cast those shadow shadows on the wall and you're making faces out of them, you know again you're going to go the dark is scary, so you need the night light again, and a lot of people grow out of it. But if it's associated with being trapped or...
...a time you needed to escape and you couldn't, it's going to get hard wine in the brain as well. Ash. I mean as much as you know we jerk a little and jest about some of these phobias, you know some of them are really, really serious, really really limit people's lives and many absolutely, and that's this is why I asked. Is a fear or a phobia, because when people say I have a phobia of something, oh, I just need a drink and I get through or avoid it, that's actually a fear. Phobia can stop someone leaving their house on the off chance they might bump into a spy day, you know, or might see someone in a mask or you know, it can. Yet it absolutely hold someone back completely from living their life, and it is, it can be a serious thing. I didn't realize that there was a phobia for people relation to the five a day, actually fear of vegetables. Phobia. Yes, that that isn't a common one, I have to say. But again, yeah, if you were force fed as a child, that's normally where it comes from, or you were, you know, you were militantly made to eat your vegetables. Again, your brain links pain to it or discomfort or feeling...
...sick, and again you're going to avoid it in later life. So yes, and again that can obviously have impacts on your health as well. If you have that one, you're going to be you know, it's not going to be great if you're not eating your vegetables if you're not eating your five or days. You say I would. I would imagine that Killematophobia doesn't really come into play very often, which is a fear of zombies because they don't exist. MMM. Well, the thing about a fear most things don't exist. It's the fear of the potential of it. So yeah, I mean I had enough student conversations about preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse when I was younger, I'm sure. But yes, welling away the hours. Yeah, and but again, if someone's in the Zombie movie as a child, than any representation of it, you know, any mask or costume can can set it off, can set off that fear. Well, the good thing is that fears and phobias, of course they can be overcome. With the help of you, Christopher Paul Jones, that I break through buster fantastic. Well, thank you very much indeed for time this morning. You're very well. been...
...great to speak to you. Are you how are you going to be selling? You're going to be celebrating Halloween tonight. What you can be doing? You said you love it. Yeah, I do, and I mean I had my party on Saturday, so today I haven't actually got any plans? I might just, I don't know, sit in the house and scare off the local children. Mean, very mean. What did you dress up as on Saturday? Then? I went as a dead s actor. Basically that was the theme. So yes, I held my face and wall like an old, old suit and hat, basically, so that might you've been dug up. Delightful yet lovely. Thank you very much for Christopher Paul Jones joining is the Sawny. Thank you. I.
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