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Trypophobia is an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes, or bumps. The condition is not officially recognized as a mental disorder, and is rarely referenced in scientific literature, but may fall under the broad category of specific phobia if fear is involved and the fear is excessive and distressing. People may express only disgust or both fear and disgust to trypophobic imagery.

The understanding of trypophobia is limited. Although few studies have been done on trypophobia, researchers hypothesize that it is the result of a biological revulsion that associates trypophobic shapes with danger or disease, and may therefore have an evolutionary basis.

The term trypophobia is believed to have been coined by a participant in an online forum in 2005. Since then, the concept of trypophobia has become popular on social media.

Classification

Trypophobia is not recognized by name as a mental disorder, and so is not a specific diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). If the fear is excessive, persistent, and associated with significant distress or impairment, trypophobia may fall under the broad category of specific phobia.

Whether trypophobia can be accurately described as a specific phobia might depend on whether the person mainly responds with fear or with disgust. Because phobias involve fear, a response to trypophobic imagery that is based mostly or solely on disgust renders its status as a specific phobia questionable. In one study, most of the participants with trypophobia met the DSM-5 criteria for specific phobia, even though they experienced disgust instead of fear when shown imagery of clusters of holes; however, they did not meet the distress or impairment criterion.

Signs and symptoms

Trypophobia often presents with an autonomic nervous system response. Shapes that elicit a trypophobic reaction include clustered holes in innocuous contexts, such as fruit and bubbles, and in contexts associated with danger, such as holes made by insects and holes in wounds and diseased tissue such as those caused by mango worms in animals, especially dogs. Upon seeing these shapes, some people said they shuddered, felt their skin crawl, experienced panic attacks, sweated, palpitated, or felt nauseated or itchy. Other reported symptoms include goose bumps, body shakes, feeling uncomfortable, and visual discomfort such as eyestrain, distortions, or illusions.

Trypophobia may manifest as a reaction of fear, disgust, or both. Disgust is usually the stronger emotion in those with trypophobia.

Causes

The understanding of trypophobia is limited. Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins of the University of Essex's Centre for Brain Science extensively published on the phenomenon. They believe the reaction is an "unconscious reflex reaction" based on a biological revulsion, rather than a learned cultural fear. Imagery of various venomous animals (for example, certain types of snakes, insects, and spiders) have visual characteristics similar to trypophobic imagery. Because of this, Cole and Wilkins hypothesized that trypophobia has an evolutionary basis meant to alert humans of dangerous organisms.

A 2018 review described trypophobia as usually involving "an intense and disproportionate fear towards holes, repetitive patterns, protrusions, etc., and, in general, images that present high-contrast energy at low and midrange spatial frequencies."

Whether trypophobia is associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has also been studied, and a significant minority of those with trypophobia meet the DSM-5 criteria for obsessive–compulsive disorder. People who react to holes are also likely to have major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

Treatment

There are no documented treatments for trypophobia, but exposure therapy, which has been used to treat phobias, is likely to be effective for treating trypophobia.

Epidemiology

The extent to which trypophobia exists is unknown, but the available data suggests that having an aversion to trypophobic imagery is relatively common. 16% of a sample of 286 participants in a 2013 study reported discomfort or repulsion when presented with an image of a lotus seed pod and its authors found that non-trypophobic individuals also reported higher discomfort ratings when viewing high contrast images with repeating patterns than when viewing neutral images.

Trypophobia appears to be more prevalent in women.

Society and culture

The term trypophobia is believed to have been coined by a participant in an online forum in 2005. The word is from the Template:Lang-grc-gre, trýpa, meaning "hole" and φόβος, phóbos, meaning "fear". Groups on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram exist for self-identified trypophobics to share and discuss images that they say trigger the reaction.

Because trypophobia is not well known to the general public, many people with the condition do not know the name for it and believe that they are alone in their trypophobic reactions and thoughts until they find an online community to share them with. This has led to an increase in trypophobic images on social media; in some cases, people seek to intentionally induce trypophobia in those who have it by showing them trypophobic images, with the most trypophobic-inducing images being holes and clusters (especially the lotus seedhead) photoshopped onto human skin. Cole and Wilkins also stated that the level of disgust with trypophobia increases if the holes are on human skin. Writing in Popular Science, Jennifer Abbasi argues that emotional contagion within such social media groups may be responsible for some of the aversive reactions to such images.

In 2017, trypophobia received significant media attention when American Horror Story featured a trypophobic character and trypophobia-inducing advertisements promoting the storyline; some people were disturbed by the imagery, and criticized the show for "insensitivity towards sufferers of trypophobia." Although there was sentiment that the increased media attention could lead to people trying to induce trypophobia, there were also opinions that it might help people understand trypophobia and encourage more research on the matter.

Author Kathleen McAuliffe suggested that trypophobia is yet to be extensively studied because researchers have not given as much attention to topics of disgust as they have to other areas of research, and because of the revulsion viewing the images could incite in researchers.

See also

• List of phobias

References

1. ^ Phobias: The Psychology of Irrational Fear. ABC-CLIO. 2015. p. 402. ISBN 1610695763. Retrieved October 25, 2017. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
2. ^ Discovering Psychology. Macmillan Higher Education. 2016. p. xxxii (sidebar). ISBN 1464176965. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
3. ^ Martínez-Aguayo, Juan Carlos; Lanfranco, Renzo C.; Arancibia, Marcelo; Sepúlveda, Elisa; Madrid, Eva (2018). "Trypophobia: What Do We Know So Far? A Case Report and Comprehensive Review of the Literature". Frontiers in Psychiatry. 9. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00015. ISSN 1664-0640. PMC 5811467. PMID 29479321.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) This article incorporates text by Juan Carlos Martínez-Aguay, Renzo C. Lanfranco, Marcelo Arancibia, Elisa Sepúlveda and Eva Madrid available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
4. Le, An T. D.; Cole, Geoff G.; Wilkins, Arnold J. (January 30, 2015). "Assessment of trypophobia and an analysis of its visual precipitation". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 68 (11): 2304–22. doi:10.1080/17470218.2015.1013970. PMID 25635930.
5. ^ Abbasi, Jennifer (July 25, 2011). "Is Trypophobia a Real Phobia?". Popular Science. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
6. ^ Cole, Geoff G.; Wilkins, Arnold J. (October 2013). "Fear of Holes". Psychological Science. 24 (10): 1–6. doi:10.1177/0956797613484937. PMID 23982244.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
7. "Everything You Should Know About Trypophobia". Healthline. August 7, 2015. Retrieved October 26, 2017. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
8. Psychology: Second European Edition. Palgrave Macmillan. 2015. p. 1391. ISBN 1137406755. Retrieved October 25, 2017. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
9. Doucleff, Michaeleen. "Fear Of Cantaloupes And Crumpets? A 'Phobia' Rises From The Web". NPR. Retrieved 10 Apr 2016.
10. ^ LaMottef, Sandee (September 14, 2017). "TV show triggers little-known phobia". CNN. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
11. King, Eric (September 6, 2017). "American Horror Story: Cult: Why is Ally afraid of small holes?". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
12. ^ Pavey, Harriet (September 5, 2017). "What is trypophobia? Bizarre fear of small holes featured in new American Horror Story series". London Evening Standard. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
13. Kathleen McAuliffe (2016). This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 154. ISBN 0544193229. Retrieved October 25, 2017.

• Phobias
• Words coined in the 2000s