Claustrophobia. Germophobia. Agoraphobia. You’ve likely heard of these extreme fears that can impact a person’s ability to go about their day-to-day life.
“It can also be mixed with other disorders like claustrophobia or social anxiety, but hodophobia can also simply exist without other additional overlapping fears,” Pathak added. “The common thread with phobias is fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the specific situation — and for many people there are associated physical symptoms like shaking, nausea, sweating, fast heartbeat.
“Perhaps they had a bad experience during or immediately after a vacation several years ago; now ‘travel=bad’ is stored in their brain,” she explained. “As with any phobia, the goal of treatment is desensitization,” Leno said. “The therapist and client work together to gradually overcome the fear of traveling. For instance, the therapist may encourage the client who desires to travel abroad to have an overnight stay at a hotel or Airbnb about an hour away from home. The next step may involve a weekend trip two hours from home.”