A pseudophobia is a purported irrational aversion or fear whose existence is as yet unproven.Vianna, Daniel M., Craig Allen, and Pascal Carrive. "Pharmacological dissociation of autonomic and behavioural responses to fear in the medullary raphe." Autonomic Neuroscience 135.1 (2007): 131-132.
Examples of pseudophobia include schoolphobia and separation anxiety.Kazdin, Alan E., and Cyd C. Strauss. "Separation anxiety and school phobia: A comparison using DSM-III criteria." Am J Psychiatry 1.44 (1987): 653. The term has also been applied to first time fathers and mothers who have an exorbitant fear of hurting their own infant child due to an exaggerated perception of their fragility.Sved-Williams, Anne E. "Phobic reactions of mothers to their own babies." Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry 26.4 (1992): 631-638. John Bowlby has described the agoraphobic condition as a pseudophobia.Moorephd, Mary Sue. "Disturbed attachment in children: A factor in sleep disturbance, altered dream production and immune dysfunction: 1." Journal of Child Psychotherapy 15.1 (1989): 99-111. These features may in actuality encompass a reaction to a lack of a secure refuge or other underlying pathological processes. Its origin typically derives from some dreaded memory.
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