-phobia
Related: fear - hate - homophobia - xenophobia
Definition
Psychologists use the term phobia, which comes from the Ancient Greek word for fear (φόβος, fovos), for a number of psychological conditions that can seriously disable their carriers.
Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorder. An American study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that between 5.1 and 21.5 percent of Americans suffer from phobias. Broken down by age and gender, the study found that phobias were the most common psychiatric illness among women in all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobia, Mar 2004
Paraphobia
Paraphobia refers to an abnormal and persistent fear of sexual perversion.Movies
- High Anxiety (1978) - Mel Brooks [Amazon US]
An affectionate homage more than a spoof of Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Mel Brooks's hilarious movie is one of the funniest modern comedies around. Brooks plays a psychiatrist with a severe fear of heights who moves to the Bay Area to take over a psychiatric hospital after its former head mysteriously disappears. He must contend with the resident psychiatrist (Harvey Korman) and the twisted resident nurse (Cloris Leachman) as they plot against him, eventually framing him for murder. While on the run, Brooks teams up with the alluring daughter (Madeline Kahn) of the missing doctor to solve the mystery and confront his own fears. Containing some classic sequences and cowritten by Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog), who appears briefly as a too-touchy bellhop in a Psycho-shower-scene takeoff, High Anxiety is a thoroughly enjoyable romp from one of the masters of comedy today. --Robert Lane, Amazon.com
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