Logophobia- Fear of words
Words can be very powerful indeed, they can convey some of the most important concepts that people feel about and towards each other. They can start wars, as well as call for peace. Indeed, there is the old saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. Words are the codex of our existence and without them, communication would be greatly decreased. As words are so important, it seems inconceivable that there are people who genuinely have a fear and anxiety of words themselves. Logophobia is the intense and severe fear of words.
This fear, like so many, often begins in childhood, particularly in early childhood education. The idea of learning a larger vocabulary, needing to be able to spell as well as comprehend new words, for most of us is a natural process, which even continues into adulthood. For sufferers, they would have had negative association with regards to the learning and disseminating of words, which causes the individual to fell less than who they are and could even have been bullied by other students or educators.
To work with these clients, it is essential to get an understanding as to where and how this fear came to be, and to look for ways to overcome and rationalise it in order to become more assimilated into the social need for communication through words.
