Falachophobia (fear of baldness): symptoms, causes and treatments

We are in a world where physical appearance is constantly judged by others. The clothes we wear, our weight, volume and physical shape and even the presence or absence of hair are considered important elements in interpersonal and even work relationships, leading to the creation of complexes if the ideal of beauty is not met or even in some cases to the suffering of different mental illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia. There are also some phobias linked to aspects of our physique.

One of them is the phalacrophobia , which we will talk about throughout this article, and which is related to an intense fear of baldness.

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Falachophobia: what is this disorder?

We understand as phalacrophobia the existence of an exaggerated and excessive fear towards baldness , fear that generates a very high level of anxiety when exposed to stimuli referred to or related to said condition.

We are facing a specific type of phobia referring to elements related to physical appearance. This implies the existence of a totally irrational and uncontrollable fear towards a concrete stimulus, so that the symptoms are serious enough to constitute an anxiety disorder.

The fact of exposing oneself or even imagining exposing oneself to such stimulus generates in the patient such anxiety that it can trigger physiological symptoms such as tachycardia, hyper intonation, dizziness tremors and even anxiety crisis. This means that the subject actively avoids exposure to the stimulus in question, or that if they are exposed to it, they experience a high level of tension and discomfort.

In phalacrophobia, the fear in question may be both the fact that the subject himself is bald and the possibility of meeting bald subjects . Thus, the subject may be in tension before social interaction with people with baldness, avoiding it. The presence of comments regarding hair loss or even publicity about it can also generate great anxiety and be actively avoided.

This fear It is often associated with the male, but the truth is that it is also suffered by many women . It must be taken into account in this sense that in men, hair loss is socially expected, not being so usual in women. This expectation may have an effect on the probability of suffering from phalacrophobia.

This phobia can have severe repercussions in the life of the patient and even become an aspect with which the subject becomes obsessed. It is not strange that the fear of going bald leads to frequent checking routines, such as the observation of the amount of hair lost when combing .

In extreme cases has been observed the existence of perceptual alterations (in a similar way to what occurs in anorexia), considering the subject to be losing hair or have scalp spots if the despite keeping it perfectly healthy.

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Causes of this phobia

The origin of both this and other phobias is an element on which there are many hypotheses, considering that its genesis is due to the combination of multiple factors.

In the case at hand, one of possible explanations for this phobia is conditioning . Some of the people who suffer from phalacrophobia have suffered during their childhood some type of traumatic experience that at the time was associated with baldness. For example, having received abuse or mistreatment by someone with alopecia, or having observed the death of an elderly person or close loved one with this characteristic.

In these cases it is possible that the subject who will suffer the phobia associates the fact of being abused or facing death with baldness, generating exposure to this fact a high level of anxiety.

Another possibility is found in the fact that we remarked in the introduction: the physical aspect. Although in recent times some people consider that baldness can represent manhood, strength and personality, the truth is that baldness se has culturally associated with physical decadence and has been removed from the beauty canon prevailing in society. This could generate a fear learned not to be considered attractive and to be socially rejected.

Linked to the two previous peppers, we must mention that hair loss has traditionally been considered as something typical of aging, assuming the loss of youth and the capabilities of this time and entering a stage of losses and an approach to death.

Treatment

The treatment of this phobia will vary depending on the stimuli in question that generate anxiety .

Exposure to phobic stimulation and systematic desensitization are some of the most effective techniques in the treatment of phobias, being based on the approach of the subject to phobic stimuli. First, a hierarchy between patient and professional will be developed in order to determine some of the main anxiety generating situations, to organize them according to the anxiety they generate.

After this, the patient will be exposed to the feared situations, starting with situations that generate average levels of anxiety to be exposed to them until in at least two consecutive trials the level of anxiety decreases until it becomes imperceptible. After that, you can move on to the next item in the hierarchy.

Another treatment to consider is cognitive restructuring , very necessary in order to modify the dysfunctional beliefs that may be behind the emergence or maintenance of the phobia. You can also use techniques such as decatastrofization to reduce the importance of the possibility of becoming bald.

A final element that we can take into account is the possibility of using relaxation techniques in order to reduce the level of anxiety.