Thanatophobia (fear of death): how to get rid, symptoms

Definition of the concept

What is thanatophobia? Thanatophobia in psychology is a strong fear of death. And you can’t argue with the fact that this is the most acute experience in a person’s life. It affects everyone differently. For some, it is motivation for constant movement forward, an active life position. For others, it is a serious illness with the most serious consequences. In most cases, while solving pressing problems and the frantic pace of life, we simply “forget” to think about death.

Thanatophobia occurs when people feel their life or social status is threatened. Often the fear of death is a consequence of deep thoughts about the meaning of life and existence, the correct choice of the field of activity (creative and professional crisis).

It is interesting that Sigmund Freud spoke about thanatophobia. According to him, there are two opposing forces inside a person: the creative love of Eros and the destructive force of Thanatos. There is always an irreconcilable war between them, which leads to the development of a feeling of fear of death.

Realizing his mortality, a person experiences unprecedented anxiety. He, of course, tries to drive these thoughts away from himself. In this he is helped by a psychological defense mechanism that hides thoughts about death either in the subconscious, or even deeper - in the area of the unconscious.

According to psychologists, pathological fear of death is a difficult to treat disease. The patient is always afraid of dying, every minute. Even when there is no visible threat or danger to his life. The most unpleasant thing is that it is not a passive phobia. It manifests itself in obsessive anticipation of death, depression and other unpleasant symptoms. Sometimes a person does not even understand what caused this condition.

Psychologists distinguish 4 levels of obsessive fear of death:

Somatic. A person is afraid of physical suffering. He worries about what will happen to the body after he dies.
Personal. Here it is important for the patient to know what will happen to his consciousness. He is afraid of losing control over himself, being left alone, becoming an inferior and insolvent person.
Social. At this level, the individual is afraid of the death of loved ones. He doesn't want to lose the relationship he has now.
Spiritual. People are afraid of the unknown, of what will happen to their soul. They are afraid of disappearing without a trace, possible retribution for their earthly actions, etc.

Interestingly, type 4 thanatophobia most often occurs if a person has a low level of depression, hysteria and other similar disorders. The second is typical for those who are not confident in themselves and their abilities, and suffer from excessive anxiety. Such people find it difficult to cope with the fear of death. It takes hold of them so much that they can no longer lead a full, joyful life. Moreover, their consciousness is paralyzed, so they cannot make quick and effective decisions in critical situations. Over time, the power of thanatophobia becomes stronger and stronger.

The strong fear of death is ambiguous in itself. Some thanatophobes are afraid of the unknown that awaits them after they die. For others, the worst thing is the last days, the suffering before death. It is especially difficult for those who believe in religious teachings about heavenly punishment and inevitable punishment for sins.

Degrees of thanatophobia

In psychiatry, fear of imminent death is considered a mental disorder. Its severity is assessed from mild to severe.

In a mild form, thanatophobia is manifested by periodically arising thoughts that one day the day will come that will be the last. That someday a person will die or people close to him will leave. The peculiarity of thanatophobia is that even if you manage to drive away these thoughts, they still return, which disrupts the usual rhythm of life. It loses its bright colors, awareness of its value disappears, a person may increasingly think about the meaninglessness of his own existence, which drives him into deep depression.

Along with the fear of death, the fear of life can also develop. This is a state in which a person tends to give up any aspirations and development. He does not see the need to study, to strive for career advancement. Does not understand the need to start a family or take care of loved ones. The fear of life forces him to close himself off, refuse communication, and remain alone, which only drives him deeper into a depressive state.

In severe thanatophobia, there is an intense fear of death, which leads to the development of tangible, physiological symptoms. In this case, disturbances in the circulatory system may occur: increased blood pressure, palpitations, tachycardia. Dizziness and frequent urination may bother you. A natural stage in the development of a phobia is sleep disturbances, and the impossibility of normal rest leads to an even greater deterioration of well-being.

“In its extreme form, thanatophobia leads to the development of other diseases - psychosomatic,” notes clinical psychologist Nikolai Chadayev. “As a result, a person has to work on pills, which, of course, does not improve well-being. In acute cases, the disorder can lead to suicide, so thanatophobia must be combated.”

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Symptoms of thanatophobia

Conventionally, symptoms of fear of sudden death are divided into 3 groups:

Physiological. These include: trembling in the arms and legs, arrhythmia, rapid breathing, nausea, excessive sweating, chills or fever, disturbances in the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and even problems in the sexual sphere.
Mental. We are talking about panic attacks that are almost impossible to control, loss of a sense of reality, depression, and problems with sleep. The patient reacts violently and sometimes inappropriately to the mention of what he is afraid of.
Emotional. This is increased anxiety, constant tension, unmotivated aggression. Man always avoids talking about death.

Another problem is inhibition of personality development. In particularly serious cases, patients deteriorate.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the symptoms of thanatophobia in creative people. They are very worried about what they will leave behind. Because of this, they are simply obsessed with some super ideas. They become selfish, stubborn, and unresponsive to criticism and the opinions of others. In their thoughts only imminent death.

A severe form of thanatophobia also has its own symptoms:

Almost complete refusal to communicate with family and friends. Limiting your social circle.
Loss of efficiency, goals, guidelines, meaning of life.
Disturbance in the functioning of internal organs and systems.
The desire to overcome the fear of death with the help of alcoholic beverages or drugs.
Insomnia, interrupted sleep with frequent nightmares.

Most thanatophobes are lonely. This happens because they withdraw into themselves, behave aggressively and irritably.

Symptoms and signs of thanatophobia

If we talk specifically about the pathological fear of death, and not about situational, sudden feelings of fear and horror, then scientists identify the following symptoms and signs of the disorder:

The predominant character traits of a person are excitability and suspiciousness. A person becomes overly sensitive to any irritant and begins to be afraid of literally everything, experiences anxiety, obsessions, doubts;
A person becomes fixated not just on the fear of dying, but on some specific form of death, for example, cardiac arrest during sleep;
Avoidance behavior, which manifests itself primarily in the fact that a person completely refuses to make any serious changes in life. Tries to avoid talking about death and is absent from the funerals of those closest to him. In severe cases, the individual stops leaving the house or even his own room.

With a strong fear of death, psychosomatic or autonomic disorders also appear:

irritability and attack of aggression;
tachycardia;
dizziness;
nausea;
increased blood pressure;
increased urination;
problems with stool;
lack of appetite;
tearfulness;
dysfunctions of a sexual nature;
weight loss, decreased performance;
feeling of lack of air;
derealization;
pseudo-pain sensations;
nightmares.

The symptoms are caused by panic attacks that occur at any time of the day and even in calm situations. Often a person wakes up in the middle of the night due to a feeling of suffocation and a strong heartbeat; this symptomatology is associated with a sharp release of adrenaline into the blood.

It is believed that it is impossible to die from fear alone, so panic attacks are not as dangerous as they seem. However, if such attacks occur frequently and are prolonged, they significantly worsen the state of the psyche, nervous system and health in general.

Often, in addition to the fear of death, psychologists discover other types of interrelated phobias in an individual. For example, panic attacks can occur at the sight of grave wreaths and tombstones, and if the cause of thanatophobia is superstition, then the person is afraid to meet certain creatures from the other world (spirits, ghosts). Against the background of this disorder, depressive states and all kinds of addictions (substance abuse, alcoholism) often occur.

Causes of fear of death

There is no exact answer to the question of what causes the development of fear of death or thanatophobia. The patient cannot say at what exact moment this oppressive feeling arises. Each situation is individual.

And yet, psychiatrists have identified a number of factors that provoke the appearance of thanatophobia:

Believers often suffer from this fear. Many religions have teachings about the afterlife, where a person will inevitably face punishment, retribution for all his earthly deeds. Deviation from religious canons is especially severely punished. In this case, it turns out that the fear of death is replaced by the fear of punishment.
Thanatophobia is the result of fear of the unknown. In most cases, educated people with a high level of intelligence encounter it. They try to understand the essence of death, but they fail. Hence the increased anxiety.
Another reason for the development of fear of death is a personal crisis. A person analyzes the years he has lived and realizes that he has achieved little of what he planned. Because of this, he is afraid that death will disrupt all his future plans and will not allow him to carry out his plans.
Those who are accustomed to controlling every area of their life are also very afraid of death. These are overly disciplined, pedantic people. They are afraid that they will have no control over the dying process. They fear both sudden death and aging, as well as what will happen in the so-called afterlife.
Thanatophobia also develops in cases where a person experiences a serious illness and death of close relatives and friends. Such a tragic personal experience leads to a change in values and priorities. The individual begins to feel differently about life and everything that happens in it. He gets satisfaction from it, but at the same time understands that it can end suddenly. Trying to avoid death, thanatophobes do everything in their power to prolong life. They try to protect themselves from diseases, take care of their health, and lead a healthy lifestyle. And often this behavior turns into pathology.
The fear of death often arises in overly emotional people. They are easily unsettled by news about any disasters, cataclysms, etc. They vividly imagine these events, as a result of which thanatophobia develops. Some experts believe that the fear of sudden death is the result of zombification, which is successfully carried out by the media. Viewers absorb information about wars and criminal incidents. Some people perceive it normally. A suspicious and overly sensitive person passes it through himself so deeply that he succumbs to the so-called “social hypnosis” and becomes nervous and irritable.

There is another version of why the fear of death appears. Some psychologists believe that this is a completely normal phenomenon that occurs in the process of growth and development of each individual without exception. The only question is what the person will do next. Awareness of mortality confronts him with a choice: to move on or to stop developing and degrade. The first option automatically triggers reflections on the meaning of life and existence.

Clinical picture of the disease

Treatment of phobia is impossible without determining its causes and clinical picture. Fear of sudden death is individual:

The patient exhibits notable traits of fear of the end of life, but of the process of biological death itself. The patient experiences obsessive fear from thoughts of dying in agony. This may also apply to unexpected cases - an accident, fire, etc. The patient worries about poor physical condition and his own agony before death.
There is a fear of becoming a frail old man. Such people are determined that it is better to die young than to make life difficult for their loved ones. Such thoughts often have no definite basis. A person programs himself without knowing about his future, health and lifestyle.
Frustration and the need for mentoring. Such problems arise in people over 40. The fact is that it is during this period that the “teacher” awakens in the soul. They strive to pass on their thoughts about housekeeping, caring for loved ones, etc. to their children and grandchildren. The feeling of anxiety in such patients arises due to the feeling of approaching death and the unpreparedness of the “students” for independent life.

Panic attacks due to thoughts of death are also present in the younger generation. Poor psychological education, severe information stress from the media, computer games and films can have a huge impact on the psyche that has not yet formed.

Elderly people strive to pass on their life experiences to their grandchildren

Symptoms of a phobia

Symptoms of a phobia can vary. They can be not only psychological, but also physiological in nature. The manifestation and nature of symptoms depends on the mental state of the patient, as well as the stage of the disease itself. Thinking about his own death, the patient may experience:

anxiety,
loss of appetite,
attacks of nausea,
increased heart rate,
sleep problems,
pseudo pain.

Thoughts about what will happen before and after death are perceived by the body as severe stress. Symptoms are just a sign that the body is triggering protective functions against a threat.

Frequent stress can become chronic, which leads to changes in the functioning of internal organs and systems. The patient may develop symptoms of diseases of the cardiovascular system, digestion, etc.

Signs of thanatophobia completely change the patient’s attitude towards life. For example, if he is afraid of dying in a plane crash, he will refuse any flights. If a person is afraid of death due to illness, any cold will cause him a panic attack and other signs of phobia.

How to get rid of the fear of death

How to overcome the fear of death? First you need to realize that it is impossible to completely get rid of it. It will always be present in your subconscious. The only question is how strongly it will manifest itself.

Treatment of thanatophobia should be comprehensive and include medication and psychotherapy.

Taking medications

This is an effective way to get rid of obsessive bad thoughts with thanatophobia. But the doctor prescribes medications only in severe cases. It is important to combine them with psychotherapeutic treatment methods, the main goal of which is to find the cause of the disease, get rid of destructive attitudes and create a new model of behavior.

Medications used to treat thanatophobia include:

antidepressants;
beta blockers;
neuroleptics.

They help reduce the severity of symptoms of the disease, reduce the number of panic attacks and neuroses.

Psychotherapy

How to deal with thanatophobia using psychotherapy? To help a patient overcome the fear of death, psychologists use the following techniques:

confrontation;
internal energy management;
stimulation of adrenaline production;
hypnosis;
desensitization;
neurolinguistic programming.

What do the listed methods of treatment provide? First, they help change the thinking of a thanatophobe. Secondly, they teach him to cope with stressful situations. And thirdly, they teach him techniques for relaxation, self-control, and maintaining clear thinking even in critical situations. The program for each patient is selected individually.

Hypnosis has proven itself well. Compared to other techniques, it has a number of advantages:

safety;
no discomfort for the patient;
painlessness.

With each session, the severity of thanatophobia symptoms decreases. A person not only gets rid of depression, obsessive fear of dying, and anxiety. He receives motivation for further movement, self-development, and the implementation of some plans and ideas. In addition, recovery processes are launched in his body. The functioning of the heart and blood vessels improves.

How to deal with the fear of death

In psychotherapeutic practice, there is such a direction as existential therapy, which helps to get rid of the fear of death. As you understand, the causes of thanatophobia are often the “inability” to live, fear of life, and lack of a conscious meaning of one’s existence. So, existential psychotherapy, and especially Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, is based on an analysis of the meanings of existence and on their individual search.

Thanatophobia can be triggered by an existential vacuum. Frankl believed that the fear of death can only be overcome through the process of searching and determining for oneself the meaning of life. Moreover, like no one else, he knows what he is talking about. His horrific biography - surviving a concentration camp - taught him to find meaning even in suffering.

The famous psychoanalyst and existential therapist Irwin Yalom in his books cites many cases where his patients experience an awakening experience and radically change their attitude towards life. Unfortunately, for many, this experience was a terminal illness. Only when the end is tangibly close do people begin to live the way they wanted for many years before.

“How many times have I heard sorrowful exclamations: “What a pity that I had to wait until cancer took over my body to learn to live,” writes Yalom. This is one of the main problems, because thanatophobia occurs much less often if a person is satisfied with every minute of his life.

In another book, Yalom expresses another interesting idea, which is confirmed by many Eastern philosophies and religious movements. “The more attachments a person has, the more burdensome life is for him and the more he suffers when he has to part with it.” Such reasoning may be close to someone, because the consumer society in which we live has influenced us so much that it is unbearable for a modern person to even imagine the asceticism of a Tibetan or Orthodox monk.

At the same time, attachments to people can play a positive role in overcoming the fear of death. What Yalom calls the “ripple effect” is one of the most effective ideas in working with thanatophobia. It implies the possibility of “continuing” yourself, your life in other people, in memories, in the influence that you had on them. The idea that pieces of your wisdom, experience, knowledge will be passed on to other people is priceless. Your personality will no longer be like a pebble thrown into water, and the circles on the surface will continue to expand.

You can defeat thanatophobia by listening to the thoughts expressed thousands of years ago by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. He quite naturally compared non-existence after death with the same state before our birth. We fear the first, but treat the second as a given. Epicurus found pleasure and the absence of fear to be the highest meaning.

Independent work - advice from psychologists

Is it possible to cope with the fear of death on your own? It is possible, but only if independent work is part of a comprehensive treatment.

So, you need to understand and accept several important truths:

Everything in life is cyclical. People are born, live for a certain period of time and die. Remember what Woland said from Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita”: “Man is not just mortal, he is sometimes suddenly mortal.” And here we cannot change anything. It is simply impossible to protect yourself 100% from unforeseen situations.
Relatives and friends always remember the deceased. Fear of the unknown, lack of legacy for descendants, and uselessness is one of the reasons for the development of thanatophobia. Considering this fact, fill your life with good deeds, which in turn will give it meaning. This will help you take your mind off painful thoughts.
Remember that holding back your emotions will not lead to anything good. So talk about your fears with those you trust. Don't underestimate the support of loved ones.
The fear of death paralyzes, deprives you of a full life, joy and pleasure. Therefore, learn to leave your comfort zone. Develop, learn, do something new. If possible, go on a trip. An alternative is walking around your hometown alone or with friends. Use life to the fullest.
Remember that thoughts are material. Negativity sets you up for self-destruction. Fight him. This does not mean that you should constantly be in a state of euphoria and delight. Enjoy every moment of life. Be confident in yourself and your abilities. This will help not only reduce the fear of death, but also get rid of it forever.

Also, to combat thanatophobia, psychologists recommend deciding on a worldview. A clear position in life will help you form your own special view of death. You will understand its nature and inevitability, but it will not frighten you. On the contrary, you will do everything to live your life with dignity.

How to overcome the fear of death of loved ones

Like thanatophobia, it cannot be completely eliminated. Yes, and it is not necessary until it turns into an obsession.

Don't get depressed. If a person close to you is seriously ill, your negative emotions will make things worse for both you and him. Therefore, it is better to concentrate on improving his life. Enjoy every minute spent with your loved ones.

Remember that, unfortunately, we cannot control some processes.

Interesting fact

It was said above that the fear of death is a completely normal phenomenon. But some people don't have it. And this is a pathology. These people include:

those who lack empathy;
those who do not know how to empathize at all;
those who have clearly expressed misanthropy (hatred of others);
persons who lack the instinct of self-preservation have a greatly reduced sense of danger;
persons with a tendency toward sadism or criminal tendencies.

Such individuals do not enjoy communication. They also often have reduced sensitivity to pain.