Abstract

Fear of fish or ichthyophobia ranges from cultural phenomena such as fear of eating fish, fear of touching raw fish, or fear of dead fish, up to irrational fear (specific phobia). Galeophobia is the fear specifically of sharks.

Phobia

Ichthyophobia is described in "Psychology: An International Perspective" as an "unusual" specific phobia. Both symptoms and remedies of ichthyophobia are common to most specific phobias.

John B. Watson, a renowned name of behaviorism, describes an example, quoted in many books in psychology, of conditioned fear of a goldfish in an infant and a way of unconditioning of the fear by what is called now graduated exposure therapy:

In contrast, radical exposure therapy was used successfully to cure a man with a "life affecting" fish phobia on the 2007 documentary series, "The Panic Room".

Cultural phenomenon

Historically, the Navajo people were described as being ichthyophobic, due to their aversion to fish. However, this was later recognised as a cultural or mythic aversion to aquatic animals, and not a psychological condition.

Fear of eating fish

The "Journal of the American Medical Association" have published a research paper addressing the fears of eating fish because contaminants, such as mercury may be accumulated in fish.

Cases of ichthyophobia

In his autobiography, Italian footballer Paolo Di Canio describes finding that his then team-mate, Peter Grant suffered from ichthyophobia. During a practical joke, Di Canio describes Grant's fearful reaction after finding a salmon head in his bed. Grant told "The Independent" that item in his bed was in fact a "shark's head" and "to say I got a fright when I put my feet between the sheets is an understatement."

Etymology

The term "ichthyophobia" comes from the Greek ἰχθῦς - "ichthus", meaning "fish" and φόβος - "phobos", "fear". "Galeophobia" comes from the Greek γαλεός - "galeos", "small shark".