simple phobia
- noun
- /ˈsɪmpəl ˈfoʊbiə/
- Specialized
:
fobia simple
- Very often, fear is just a simple phobia: Afraid of darkness, afraid of great heights, afraid of... marriage.
Examples
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Many children develop a simple phobia of animals, like dogs or spiders, which can persist into adulthood.
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Agoraphobia, simple phobia, and social phobia each involve some identified external source of anxiety and its avoidance.
Academic text (1991) -
Simple Phobia is described as an irrational fear and avoidance of a situation or object other than social situations and public places; Social Phobia is a persistent fear of, and desire to avoid, social situations in which the individual is afraid of scrutiny and embarrassment.
Academic text (1991) -
He realized that his fear of heights was actually a simple phobia that prevented him from enjoying mountain hikes.
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Therapists often use exposure therapy to help clients overcome a simple phobia of flying or enclosed spaces.
Synonyms
57
5.1
A very strong, unreasonable fear of a specific thing or situation
An extreme, unreasonable fear of a specific thing or situation that affects daily life
A strong, unreasonable fear of a specific thing or situation that causes great worry
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'phobia' means an intense irrational fear and 'simple' signals that the fear is limited or uncomplicated, so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a specific/singular fear (e.g. of spiders). The technical exclusion of conditions like agoraphobia is specialist detail, but the core meaning is predictable from the constituents.
Etymology
The term simple phobia comes from the idea that the fear is of one clear thing: simple means 'single' or focused, and phobia means a strong fear. Imagine one spider or one high place causing all the fear, so the term now means a very strong, often unreasonable fear of one specific object or situation.