What Is Chrometophobia? (An Overview)

In this blog we will discuss the symptoms, causes and treatment of Chrometophobia.

An intense fear of money is called Chrometophobia. It is a type of specific phobia which comes under the category of anxiety disorders in the DSM-V.

Someone suffering from it will experience extreme anxiety when they touch, see or think about money.

If the condition worsens, one can also undergo full-blown panic attacks.

Money is one of the most important things in one’s life nowadays. Every individual is in a quest of making more money because without it, one is regarded as powerless.

However, someone suffering from Chrometophobia will see it as a source of mental anguish.

Looking at money, touching it or even thinking about it results in an exaggerated sense of insecurity to their lives.

Chrometophobia is very subjective. It means, every individual suffers from it differently.

For example, one will be fearful of touching money while others will be afraid of the negative effects money can have on their lives.

To get rid of all these intruding thoughts which affect one’s rational thinking, sufferers avoid their fear stimuli (money).

This avoidance maintains one’s phobia by producing pleasant feelings. These feelings act as a driving force, which persuade one to repeat his acts of avoidance.

Repetitive acts can, though look an easy way out of a fear causing situation, in the long run it can prove to be dangerous.

Repeated actions can turn into compulsions and one will develop OCD in the future.

According to the DSM-V, anxiety and avoidance will affect one’s social and occupational functioning.

For example, one will avoid going shopping and or travelling for the fear of encountering money.

Someone who fears the negative aspects of money will refrain from doing a job because of the fear that they’ll earn money, which will bring problems in their life.

A sufferer will not leave his house at all because they are afraid of getting exposed to money.

An individual with Chrometophobia can also develop depression as a result of these negative thoughts and acts of avoidance.

Chrometophobia is an irrational fear of money.

Also known as Chrematophobia, the name derives from the Greek word ‘chermato’ meaning money and ‘phobos’ meaning fear.

Symptoms of Chrometophobia

Like in the case of all other specific phobias, Chrometophobia too has anxiety as its focal symptom.

Individuals suffering from an irrational fear of money suffer from extreme anxiety which, as mentioned earlier, can result in one having panic attacks.

When one undergoes extreme anxiety, the body experiences other physiological symptoms as well.

Such as increased heart rate or palpitations.

When the sufferer thinks about his fear stimuli, he goes into flight or fight mode because of an adrenaline rush.

In this state, the body’s physiological responses help one make decisions when in fear causing situations.

They either decide to escape the situation (flight)-faint or suffer from panic attacks or stay and combat their fear (fight)-by taking counterproductive actions.

Sufferers of Chrometophobia experience symptoms in different ways. One might have more severe symptoms than the other, based on their past experiences and intensity of the phobia.

Though, as the DSM-5 suggests, one must experience anxiety lasting for at least 6-months.

Symptoms one experiences in Chrometophobia are:

Excessive anxiety when exposed to money
Excessive anxiety when thinking about money
Inability to manage anxiety
Full-blown panic attacks
Avoiding money
Increased heart beat
Breathlessness
Muscle tension
Nausea
Feelings of dizziness/fainting
Feeling depressed
Fear of an impending doom
Excessive sweating
Tremors
Hot/cold flashes
Butterflies in the stomach
Drying up of the mouth
Disorientation
Migraine
Insomnia

For one to be diagnosed with Chrometophobia, a person should experience at least 3-5 of these symptoms (including anxiety).

Causes of Chrometophobia

Like every other specific phobia, Chrometophobia is a result of either genetics or a past traumatic experience.

Someone who has a family history of anxiety disorders or specific phobias has a higher chance of developing Chrometophobia than someone who doesn’t.

This is because they are genetically predisposed to develop it.

Genes and neurotransmitters also play a significant role in this genetic predisposition.

This genetic tendency to develop a mental disorder/specific phobia can also be referred to as a Diathesis-stress relationship.

According to this, one with a genetic predisposition will not develop symptoms of Chrometophobia until and unless there is some trigger event, instigating anxiety or fear of money.

Someone who fears germs (Mysophobia) will avoid touching money because they can act as a medium for the transmission of diseases.

Currently, the Coronavirus epidemic is one of the biggest reasons why one can develop Chrometophobia.

Money is made up of paper. A coronavirus sufferer can easily transmit this virus to someone healthy by infecting the money he touches with the virus.

Therefore, as a precautionary measure, people avoid touching money or wash their hands after coming in contact with it due to the fear of catching the virus.

One is very likely to develop Chrometophobia because of the ongoing epidemic.

Additionally, a sufferer might fear money because of the fact that people get terminated by their own loved ones for the sake of it.

This thought can be a result of either their own personal experience (seeing their parents suffer from it) or hearing someone else experience this incident via news.

Also, one can fear money because he has seen people or his own family members quarrelling over it due to greed.

The negativity money spreads in one’s life can be the biggest reason for Chrometophobia to develop.

Children learn to be terrified of money by seeing their parents act this way when exposed to money.

Therefore, Chrometophobia is caused by both genetics and environmental factors.

Treatment of Chrometophobia

Chrometophobia, like all other specific phobias, has no exclusive type of treatment that is specifically designed to treat it.

Like all the other specific phobias, Chrometophobia is treated by a number of different therapies including, Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT) and or medications that lower downs the anxiety or other physical symptoms.

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

It is one of the most frequently used treatments for patients with almost all kinds of mental disorders.

Chrometophobia is defined as the irrational fear of money. Thus, the therapist helps the patient in replacing these irrational thoughts with more rational ones.

The patients are helped out in analyzing and justifying the way they feel about their fear stimuli.

Therapists assist them in uncovering the reasons behind their fear and later they provide them with alternate, pleasant thoughts.

The patient is told to maintain a thought diary (with ABCD column) which provides them a replacement for every irrational thought they have, when thinking about a particular situation.

The ABCD stands for:

i. A (antecedents) a situation or triggering event.

ii. B (belief) the thought that comes to one’s mind when in that triggering situation.

iii. C (consequences) the symptoms/feelings caused by that event/thought

iv. D (dispute) alternate, rational thoughts provided by the therapist in an attempt to dispute/challenge those irrational beliefs.

This last section of the thought diary is what really plays a role in helping the person feel good/less anxious.

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

MBSR is a meditation therapy, used to manage stress or anxiety. It is an 8-week program which includes group sessions.

Mindfulness meditation and Hatha yoga are practiced in these sessions.

Lectures and group discussions are also done to talk about mental health and increase interactivity.

In mindfulness meditation the person is told to, for example, focus on the sensations felt while breathing or the rhythm of the chest rising and falling during the process.

This distracts the person’s attention from something stressful to something which is neutral and soothing.

For quick and effective treatment, patients are also given a set of home works, for example 45 minutes of yoga and meditation sessions for 6 days a week and to record their results/feelings in a book or diary for 15 minutes a day.

• Exposure Therapy

It is one of the most frequently used ways of treating patients with Chrometophobia (or any other kind of specific phobia).

In this therapy, the patient is exposed to the source of his fear over a certain span of time.

To begin with the therapy, the therapist exposes the patient to the least triggering stimuli, a picture of money for example.

As the therapy progresses and the patient is able to control his anxious feelings, imagery can be used to take the treatment a step further.

In this part of the treatment the patient is asked to visualize/imagine a situation in which he is exposed to money.

During this process of imagery, one actually feels that he’s in that particular situation or place, experiencing various senses.

Once the person successfully, without feeling anxious, clears this step of the therapy, he is then exposed to real money. .

While the patient is being exposed to different levels of fear during the various stages of therapy, the therapist simultaneously teaches them coping exercises.

These include, breathing techniques or muscle relaxation methods to lower their anxiety, when in an actual fear causing situation.

This teaches them how to remain calm when exposed to their fear stimuli.

Before actually starting the exposure therapy, the therapist needs to figure out the intensity of the patient’s fear, as to deduce whether they will be able to undergo this treatment, without any physical or psychological harm caused to them during the exposure processes.

However, these steps desensitize one to their fear of money by exposing them to that stimuli repeatedly, until they learn to undergo the situation without anxiety/panic attacks.

• EMDR

This another form of treatment used with patients suffering from specific phobia or anxiety disorders. It is used with patients who know the cause of their phobia.

First, the therapist collects the patients’ history of different fears. They then identify the real cause of the particular fear/phobia the patient has.

They then discuss any new/latest event that triggered their anxiety and fear in the past few weeks.

People coming with specific phobias are told to imagine their distress causing stimuli.

The therapist then works with the individual in order for them to overcome their fear. In the case of Chrometophobia, the patient will be advised on how to overcome his fear of money.

They do this by creating a positive imagery for the patients’ feared stimuli.

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

This is another effective therapy used to treat Chrometophobia.

It is more commonly used with people suffering from personality disorders, but is also useful with patients suffering from this type of specific phobia.

Coping skills are taught in the DBT group which lasts for about 6-months and can have a number of people (depending on how many join the group).

i.Half-smiling is the first module of DBT. It is a technique that is used with patients who are distressed because of their irrational thoughts.

The technique is known as ‘Half-smiling’ because the person is first advised to think about the stimuli that fears or upsets them, and while doing so they are told to lift the corners of their mouths by subtly smiling.

Smiling is not that will help one get rid of these unpleasant thoughts, it is the person’s ability to constrain itself from thinking about those thoughts while half smiling.

ii.Mindfulness, the second module, is another technique used in DBT groups which helps the individual in getting rid of those negative thoughts.

Individuals are told to focus on the present and be attentive to what is going on around them at the moment. This helps in breaking the link between their mind and any negative thought that might come to them then.

For example, a person is told to focus on his breath or on the sound of the wind around them, making use of their auditory sense.

iii.The third technique or module of the DBT is distress tolerance skills. This module teaches people to calm themselves down in healthy ways when they are distressed or emotionally overwhelmed.

Individuals are allowed to make wise, rational decisions and take immediate action, rather than being captured by emotionally destructive thoughts that might make the situation worse.

Reality acceptance skills are also learnt under this model so that people fully accept reality and later make plans on how to address the problem.

• Yoga/Meditation

They are not just one of the many treatment therapies used for Chrometophobia, instead they are one of the most common ways of relaxation used by many people.

Yoga tends to stimulate the meditative state of one’s mind while the person is in a particular yoga posture.

Through yoga/meditation the mind is diverted towards something more productive and calm, allowing the person to escape the negative, distress causing thoughts.

Out of a number of yoga types, one can benefit from any yoga type/pose they like. Hatha yoga is one of the different types of yoga.

The breathing techniques or the imagery one creates while in a yoga posture are the real factors that makes the person feel less anxious and diverts their mind, away from the thoughts about their fear stimuli.

• Drug Therapy

Drugs are used to reduce the physical symptoms caused by Chrometophobia.

Drugs are very quick in effectiveness, as they start showing progress in the patients’ health at least 2 weeks after the medicine is taken.

This type of biological treatment is usually more effective if the cause of the phobia is only genetic.

However, these drugs/medicines are not to be taken without a doctor’s prescription or consultation.

Two types of drugs are used in the treatment of this phobia:

i. Antidepressant Drugs

These drugs, as the name suggests don’t only treat depression but are also very effective in treating phobias.

Medicines like Paxil reduce the anxious feelings of a person and makes him feel calm. They need to be taken on a daily basis but not without a doctor’s advice.

ii.Anti-anxiety Drugs

Medicines like Klonopin are anti-anxiety drugs.

They are most commonly used with patients who experience panic attacks and also lowers their anxiety by binding to receptor cells of the brain that cause these unpleasant symptoms.

Whether the cause of Chrometophobia, or any other type of specific phobia is genetics, environmental or both, the best and the most effective way of treating them is by using a combination of both biological treatments (drugs) with cognitive treatment (for example CBT/exposure therapy).