Hand-set lists · 13 collections
Phobia and fear collections
A category has a rule; a collection has an argument. These 13 sets are cut by hand across the 13 categories: the phobias most often called common, the ones that are genuinely rare, the medical fears whose avoidance is itself the danger, the five types DSM-5-TR recognises, and the words ending in -phobia that name no fear at all.
- Words That Are Not PhobiasPhotophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, chromophobia. Where the suffix does scientific, political or sociological work instead of naming a fear.
- Medical and Dental FearsThe fears whose avoidance is itself the danger. Needles, dentists, doctors, hospitals and scans, and what avoiding each one costs the person avoiding it.
- Most Common PhobiasSpiders, heights, flying, the dentist, public speaking: the phobias most often called common, each with the prevalence figure the claim rests on.
- One Word, Two Different FearsAerophobia, phonophobia, basophobia: terms carrying two unrelated senses, with the collision traced and the usable meaning named.
- Phobias in the DSM-5Animal, natural environment, blood-injection-injury, situational and other: one entry per DSM-5 type, plus the fears the manual filed somewhere else.
- When the Suffix Is an AccusationHomophobia, islamophobia, russophobia and the rest: where each word was coined, who uses it, and why none of them is a phobia in the clinical sense.
- Words Nobody Has Ever UsedPerfectly formed Greek terms with no case, no prevalence and no diagnostic listing. Where each word was found, and what the record behind it actually holds.
- Culture-Bound SyndromesSusto, taijin kyofusho, dhat, sinbyeong and wendigo psychosis: presentations shaped by a setting rather than a separate species of fear.
- Fears Studied by Everybody Except PsychiatryDrowning, fever, fireworks and scabies: fears measured seriously by swimming instructors, paediatricians and vets rather than by psychiatry.
- Fears That Are Right About Their ObjectBats carry rabies and shredders take fingers. The entries where the object is genuinely dangerous, and what still separates caution from a phobia.
- Internet-Coined PhobiasTrypophobia, nomophobia, FOMO, doomscrolling. Phobia words that reached the public before they reached a clinic, in the order the coinages happened.
- Rare and Unusual PhobiasButtons, feathers, colours, the sun. The phobias called rare, separated into the ones a case literature documents and the ones nobody has counted.
- Blood, Injection and Injury PhobiasOne group of phobias drops blood pressure instead of raising it, which reverses the advice that helps. The entries where the distinction matters.
Common questions
Questions about grouping phobias
What a collection is, what separates it from a category, and what the sets deliberately leave out.
What is the difference between a category and a collection?
A category has a rule and a collection has an argument. Every entry files under exactly one of the 13 categories, decided by what the fear centres on, and the category prints the rule for what belongs in it. A collection is set by hand, cuts across those categories, and exists because somebody had something to say that a filing rule cannot say.
How many types of phobia are there?
DSM-5-TR sorts specific phobia into five types: animal, natural environment, blood-injection-injury, situational, and a residual heading called other. That last one matters more than it looks, because it holds fears that are real and common and belong to none of the first four. The DSM-5 collection walks them one at a time. The types sort by mechanism rather than by frightening thing, which is why an object can move between headings without anybody’s fear changing.
What makes a phobia rare?
Two different things, and phobia lists almost never separate them. A fear can be rare because it has been looked for and found in few people, which is a finding. Or the word can be rare because nobody has ever counted it, which is not. Fear of buttons has two published estimates around three million people apart. Fear of the great mole rat has six words in an encyclopedia and a collection of quotations that all use it as a joke.
Why do some collections include entries that are not phobias?
Because the boundary is the argument. White coat syndrome is not a phobia and sits in the medical set because it is the only entry where a fear produces a number in somebody else’s records. Photophobia names sensitivity to light and sits in the set about the suffix. Delusional parasitosis is a delusional disorder filed under a phobia word. 127 of the entries here belong to no diagnosis at all, and a set that excluded them would be arguing the opposite case.
Can the same phobia appear in more than one collection?
Yes, and several do. Fear of needles is in the medical set because avoiding it costs a vaccination, and in the blood-injection-injury set because the body faints instead of fleeing. The two sets make different arguments about the same entry, and the note attached to it says which argument it is there for. A category is exclusive; a collection is not.
Do the collections cover the whole catalogue?
No, and they are not meant to. 127 of the 284 entries appear in a set. A collection is deliberately incomplete and says what it leaves out, because a set that swept in every eligible entry would be a filter with a title on it. The complete list lives in the A–Z index and in browse.