Peladophobia: symptoms and treatment

According to most women, bald men are very sexy and attractive, some men find bald women very attractive and interesting. But this does not sound soothing to those who are panicky afraid of suddenly balding. Such people are called peladophobes.

Peladophobia - an irrational fear of baldness, fear of bald people. Initially, a person with such a mental disorder is intimidated by the prospect of baldness. He is reminded of such a probability by the bald people he met, and therefore the fear spreads in most cases to them.

Almost equally, both men and women suffer from peladophobia. This phobic disorder can develop in young and old, in adolescents. There are no age signs of fear.

But trichologists (hair health specialists) point out that they are very often approached by people with complaints of extreme concern about the prospects of balding, while having no obvious prerequisites for loss of hair. It is possible that many of them suffer from peladophobia.

It is necessary to distinguish people who are squeamish or critical of bald people. This is a matter of culture, upbringing, personal preference and taste, but not a phobic disorder of the psyche. A real peladophobe does not criticize bald people, he is simply afraid of them, because he himself is afraid to become like that.

Peladophobes pay too much attention to their hair and their health. They are ready to spend huge sums on healing procedures, on modern innovative hair care products.They often anxiously examine their hairline in mirrors.

At the same time, mild forms of peladophobia can remain almost unnoticed by others - a person simply tries not to come close to a bald colleague, does not make friends with him, does not drink tea with him at lunchtime.

More pronounced stages of the phobic disorder are accompanied by obvious vegetative symptoms, the manifestations of which the peladophobe cannot control, no matter how hard he tries. He avoids places where bald people can meet, and given that they can meet everywhere, a person is in constant tension. Upon a sudden meeting with a bald person, if it was not possible to avoid it, the phob begins to experience symptoms of the effects of adrenaline on his body:

• blood pressure rises, heart rate, pulse quickens;
• cold sweat appears on the palms, face, back;
• there is a feeling of loss of reality, the person does not control the situation around;
• pupils dilate, skin turns pale;
• there is a feeling of lack of air for normal breathing;
• the mouth dries up;
• tremors (trembling of hands, lips) may occur;
• in severe cases, dizziness, loss of consciousness occurs.

A panic attack goes away after the fear factor disappears. After an attack of a panic attack, a person feels tired, overwhelmed, ashamed of his own, possibly public, inappropriate behavior.

All peladophobes tend to pay great attention to the search for new methods and drugs for hair, they practice various folk and medical methods.

It is known that Hollywood actor Tom Cruise suffers from peladophobia. He does not hide that he is very afraid of becoming bald, and therefore does not spare money for caring for the scalp. The actor flatly refuses the roles of bald characters, even if he generally likes the script. After forced communication with bald ones, Cruz visits his psychoanalyst, because, according to him, he needs to restore mental strength.

Peladophobia refers to mental disorders of the phobic type. It represents an overreaction to a situation that the human brain perceives as dangerous. It is quite clear that baldness does not pose a danger to human life, many without a single hair on their heads live a long and quite happy life, and therefore the fear of baldness is unreasonable, irrational, which has nothing to do with the manifestations of the natural instinct of self-preservation for a person.

Psychiatrists studying this phenomenon have come to the conclusion that often the cause of fear lies in heredity. At the same time, it is not the fear itself that is inherited, but the behavioral model of the ancestor - if one of the parents was terribly afraid of losing hair and the child observed this throughout his childhood, he perceives this adult model as genuine, and acts in the same way without thinking too much , and why, in fact, he is so afraid of bald head.

The prospect, which is very real, causes anxiety, which is constantly present and accumulates, pouring out into a real phobic disorder.

Peladophobia can be caused by some unpleasant and traumatic events that happened in childhood. For example, a child has become a victim of violence, abuse by a bald person. The reason may lie in another kind of experience: for some reason, the child was shaved baldly, which caused a flurry of ridicule, bullying from peers, who firmly tied two phenomena in the subconscious - a feeling of unhappiness and a bald head.

For example, an impressionable and highly anxious child or adolescent might get a tremendous impression from other people's stories from watching a movie in which a bald person was a clear anti-hero.

It is impossible to fight peladophobia on your own. It is important to work with the wrong attitudes, and therefore you need to entrust it to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist. The doctor will be able to detect the causes and eliminate their consequences. Rational psychotherapy is a very effective method - after a course of treatment, a person will begin to tolerate the process of baldness as an inevitable age-related change that does not threaten life in any way.

Medication is not considered effective for peladophoia, but if the fear of bald people is associated with a high level of anxiety, depression, then at the discretion of the doctor can be used antidepressants and sedatives.

For the strangest phobias, see below.