Blood phobia

Blood phobia (also Hämatophobie, " morbid fear of blood " ) is an anxiety disorder. You can to the group of blood, injury and syringe phobias (English blood -injury -injection phobia ) will be counted and will in the ICD -10 under the specific ( isolated ) phobias classified. A characteristic feature is the pronounced fear of seeing blood, and avoiding appropriate situations (eg blood donations).

Unlike other anxiety disorders often result in blood phobias fainting spells. Sufferers have - in contrast to panic patients - a typical biphasic autonomic response to: After a very short period with an increase of blood pressure and heart rate followed by a dramatic drop in these functions, that is, it comes to hypotension and bradycardia. In this case, it is assumed that an over-reaction of the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to a vasovagal syncope. In panic disorder, however, it comes to an overreaction of the sympathetic nervous system.

Therapy

To counteract the powerlessness, was developed by Aus and colleagues specifically for Blutphobiker the method of applied tension (Applied tension ). Here, interested parties are tense in the situation of fear their large skeletal muscles ( arms, chest, legs) repeatedly for short periods, so as to increase the blood pressure.