Talk:Coulrophobia

It does not matter if the term is in the DSM. The word used should be common, rather than informal
''The term coulrophobia has been coined in the context of informal "-phobia lists". The term is not listed in the World Health Organisation's ICD-10 nor in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 categorisation of disorders.''

Both the WHO and the APA are interested in diagnosis and treatment of Phobia, independent of the stimulus. The lists of the most common, hazardous phobias are to create a common language for documentation. The important issue with phobias is the effect on the patient's life. These effects include  anxiety when exposed to an unusual stimulus, difficulty performing tasks in the presence of a stimulus, difficulty performing tasks because of fear of exposure to the stimulus. anxiety which interferes with normal life, and anxiety that can be life threatening without professional assistance.

For example, some people suffer a panic attack every time the person is exposed to an image of a three pronged fork (usually associated with depictions of "the devil" in early life).

Fear of costumed people (clowns, pirates, and so on) is considered to be in the first category. Exposure to the stimulus is unusual and most sufferers have an avoidance or flight response. These phobias usually only interfere with life activities in a confined space, with no place to flee. For example, a clown entering an elevator can trigger a panic attack, but that is so rare it is not considered significant. It does not meet the criteria for listing in the DSM.

On the other hand, people in police uniforms are a much more common stimulus. A fear of police that is strong enough to cause a "fight or flight" response interferes with normal life and is a common enough phobia to warrant study beyond normal anxiety reduction therapy. Drbits (talk) 21:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Tend to agree. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:34, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

removal of the clown image
I have removed the clown image, as it was discussed some years ago, images of clowns adds nothing to the article, if the reader doesn't know what a clown is or what a clown looks like, the link to the clown article is only a click away, and also some consideration of coulrophobes viewing this article must be considered as well, as any image of clowns, whether be happy or scary, could be tramatic for suffers of this phobia, as am I, granted, the image on here is not as scary as the previous one, still, this or any image will be just as tramatic to suffers and should be avoided.

Please refer to this past discussion for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Coulrophobia/Archive_1#Removal_of_File:Scary_clown.jpg Greg The Webmaster (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I guess you could say the same for the articles on Bibliophobia, Claustrophobia, Fear of falling, Ornithophobia, Trypophobia, Triskaidekaphobia, Acrophobia, Agoraphobia, Tetraphobia, Taphophobia, Fear of trains, Radiophobia, Nomophobia? Chromophobia looks particularly misleading?  Martinevans123 (talk) 17:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The images on claustrophobia, triskaidekaphobia, tetraphobia, taphophobia, train phobia, radiophobia, nomophobia seems harmless to me, since they don't show the actual fear at all, and as for chromophobia, that unfortunately is unavoidable, as this is, as I understand it, it's a color phobia, to appease suffers of this phobia, the article would have to devoid of all colors, which we cannot do of course.

But images for basophobia, acrophobia, trypophobia is particularly insensitive and should be removed. Greg The Webmaster (talk) 06:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess we can't have all colours at chromophobia, as that would illustrate "fear of rainbows". But let's hope that single colour doesn't upset too many readers? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:01, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

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Research
A lot of material that looks wholly relevant has been removed in this edit. Sources include reuters.com and an smithsonianmag.com article called "The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary". What is the justification for removing all of this? 86.187.172.51 (talk) 18:15, 1 November 2017 (UTC)