What is Consecotaleophobia? (A Summary)

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

An intense fear of chopsticks is called Consecotaleophobia. 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 exposed to chopsticks. 

Even the thought of chopsticks can instaget high levels of anxiety, which might end up as panic attacks.  

Chopsticks are wooden utensils, used to eat food in Chinese and or Japanese cultures. They are completely harmless and unthreatening.

They’re neither sharp nor heavy and individuals  are taught to use them from a very young age. 

However, someone suffering from Consecotaleophobia will find chopsticks to be extremely terrifying.

Their fear is completely irrational, and though, some realise this, they are unable to control their anxiety. Instead, they find an easier way of managing their unpleasant feelings. 

One tends to avoid their fear stimuli, chopsticks in order to minimize the negative, intrusive thoughts one has upon getting exposed to them.

This avoidance is repeated every time one sees chopsticks because of the sense of security it gives them.

Repeated acts of avoidance can lead to bigger problems in the future. An individual suffering from Consecotaleophobia can develop OCD as a result. 

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

For example, someone suffering from this type of specific phobia will avoid going to a chinese restaurant because of the fear that he’ll encounter chopsticks. 

One will refrain from going to school may be because he fears he’ll get exposed to his fear stimuli. 

Consecotaleophobia is an irrational fear of chopsticks. It is a type of specific phobia which is very closely related to the fear of Chinese and or Japanese cultures. 

Symptoms of Consecotaleophobia 

Anxiety is a symptom, common in all specific phobias, including Consecotaleophobia.

People with this irrational fear of chopsticks can become extremely anxious in their presence or by their thought.

This might even cause them to have full-blown panic attacks, requiring hospitalization if the condition worsens.

According to the DSM-V, one must have anxiety lasting for at least 6-months. In addition to anxiety, one also suffers from a number of different physiological symptoms.

One’s experience of their fear varies from person to person. This is because individuals process the same stimuli differently, based on their past experiences. 

Sufferers go 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 panic attacks or stay and combat their fear (fight)-by taking counterproductive steps. 

According to the DSM-V, one must experience at least 3-5 of the symptoms listed below to be diagnosed with Consecotaleophobia, which are as follows: 

• Extreme anxiety in the presence of chopsticks 
• Extreme anxiety caused by the thought about chopsticks 
• Inability to manage anxiety
• Frequently avoiding chopsticks 
• Full-blown panic attacks
• Feeling of an impending doom 
• Muscle tension
• Increased heartbeat
• Breathlessness
• Excessive sweating
• Nausea
• Mouth drying up
• Dizziness 
• Tremors 

Causes of Consecotaleophobia 

Consecotaleophobia can be a result of either a genetic predisposition or environmental factors.

If someone has a genetic predisposition or a family history of anxiety disorders, they are more likely to develop a specific phobia.

This is because they have an inborn tendency to have Consecotaleophobia, triggered by an environmental factor (Diathesis-stress relationship).

Other phobias that are related to Consecotaleophobia can also be the reason why one develops it. 

For example, someone with Xylophobia (fear of wooden objects) will be fearful of chopsticks because they are also a type of wooden object. 

One who has a fear of Japanese (Japanophobia) and or Chinese cultures (Sinophobia) is very likely to develop this irrational fear of chopsticks.

Additionally, a past traumatic childhood experience can also lead to one developing Consecotaleophobia.

As a child one might have injured his fingers or suffered pain while using chopsticks. 

Also, one can learn to be scared of them by looking at parents. An individual, whose parents are afraid of using chopsticks can also suffer from Consecotaleophobia. 

To conclude, Consecotaleophobia is caused by a combination of both genetics and environmental factors. 

Treatment of Consecotaleophobia 

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

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

• Exposure Therapy

It is one of the most frequently used ways of treating patients with Consecotaleophobia (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 chopsticks 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 encounters a chopstick.

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 chopsticks. 

While the patient is being exposed to different levels of pain 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 pain 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 chopsticks, by exposing them to that stimuli repeatedly, until they learn to undergo the situation without anxiety/panic attacks.

• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

It is one of the most frequently used treatments for patients with almost all kinds of mental disorders. Consecotaleophobia is defined as the irrational fear of chopsticks.

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 being exposed to their fear stimuli.

The 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. 

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

This is another effective therapy used to treat Consecotaleophobia. It is more commonly used with people suffering from personality disorders, but is also useful with patients of Xylophobia.

Coping skills are taught in the DBT group which lasts for about 6months 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 smell of a certain food presented to them, making use of their olfactory 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.

• 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, to 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.

• Yoga/Meditation

They are not just one of the many treatment therapies used for Consecotaleophobia, 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 a person is in a particular yoga pose/position.

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 for 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 chopsticks. 

• Drug Therapy

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

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.       Anti-anxiety Drugs

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

        ii.       Antidepressant Drugs

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

Medicines like Lexapro 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. 

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

Frequently Asked Questions 

Citations 

• https://psychtimes.com/consecotaleophobia-fear-of-chopsticks/
• https://fearof.org/consecotaleophobia/
• https://healthylife.werindia.com/your-road-to-healthy-life/consecotaleophobia-fear-of-chopsticks
• www.commonphobias.com