Blood phobia

Blood phobia
Other namesHemophobia
SpecialtyPsychiatry, clinical psychology

Blood phobia (also known as hemophobia or hematophobia in American English and haemophobia or haematophobia in British English) is an extreme irrational fear of blood, a type of specific phobia. Severe cases of this fear can cause physical reactions that are uncommon in most other fears, specifically vasovagal syncope (fainting).[1] Similar reactions can also occur with trypanophobia and traumatophobia. For this reason, these phobias are categorized as blood-injection-injury phobia by the DSM-IV.[2] Some early texts refer to this category as "blood-injury-illness phobia."[3]

  1. ^ The Merck Manual, archived from the original on 2007-05-09, retrieved 2007-05-19
  2. ^ Lipsitz, JD; Barlow, DH; Mannuzza, S; Hofmann, SG; Fyer, AJ (July 2002), "Clinical features of four DSM-IV-specific phobia subtypes", The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 190 (7): 471–8, doi:10.1097/00005053-200207000-00009, PMID 12142850, S2CID 8580337
  3. ^ Thyer, Bruce A.; Himle, Joseph; Curtis, George C. (July 1985), "Blood-Injury-Illness Phobia: A Review", Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41 (4): 451–459, doi:10.1002/1097-4679(198507)41:4<451::AID-JCLP2270410402>3.0.CO;2-O, PMID 4031083