Fear of fish


Fear of fish or ichthyophobia ranges from cultural phenomena such as fear of eating fish, fear of touching raw fish, or fear of dead fish, up to irrational fear. Galeophobia is the fear specifically of sharks.

Phobia

Ichthyophobia is described in Psychology: An International Perspective as an "unusual" specific phobia. Both symptoms and remedies of ichthyophobia are common to most specific phobias.
John B. Watson, a renowned name in behaviorism, describes an example, quoted in many books in psychology, of conditioned fear of a goldfish in an infant and a way of unconditioning of the fear by what is now called graduated exposure therapy:
In contrast, radical exposure therapy was used successfully to cure a man with a "life affecting" fish phobia on the 2007 documentary series, The Panic Room.

Cultural phenomenon

Historically, the Navajo people were described as being ichthyophobic, due to their aversion to fish. However, this was later recognised as a cultural or mythic aversion to aquatic animals, and not a psychological condition.

Fear of eating fish

The Journal of the American Medical Association have published a research paper addressing the fears of eating fish because contaminants, such as mercury may be accumulated in fish.

Cases of ichthyophobia

In his autobiography, Italian footballer Paolo Di Canio describes finding that his then teammate Peter Grant suffered from ichthyophobia. During a practical joke, Di Canio describes Grant's fearful reaction after finding a salmon head in his bed. Grant told The Independent that item in his bed was in fact actually a "shark's head" and "to say I got a fright when I put my feet between the sheets is an understatement."

Etymology

The term ichthyophobia comes from the Greek ἰχθῦς - ichthus, meaning "fish" and φόβος - phobos, "fear". Galeophobia comes from the Greek γαλεός - galeos, "small shark".