What is Metallophobia? (An Overview)

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

Fear of metals is known as Metallophobia. Metals are elements, an essential component of our life.

They are malleable and ductile, conducting heat and electricity. 

Metals include, iron, lead, silver, gold etc. They are expensive and precious. People normally aren’t scared of them because they cause no potential harm.

However, heavy metals such as mercury are very toxic. Their toxicity can cause severe health issues, for example organ damage. 

People are cautious when handling toxic metals and at times avoid them because of the consequences they cause.

But, unlike in Metallophobia, they don’t suffer from extreme anxiety when around them. 

Metallophobia is a part of anxiety disorders in the DSM-V under the category of specific phobias.

Sufferers experience extreme anxiety not only when exposed to metals but also when thinking about them.

Their anxiety persuades them to avoid coming in contact with metals. 

This avoidance restricts one’s social and occupational functioning. For example, a sufferer will avoid touching or going near things made of gold (such as jewelry) and or touch machines which are made of metal. 

They will refrain from going near a car because it is also made of metals. One will refuse to sit in it or a bus to go to school or office.

They will prefer walking, which will result in them being late, losing job or school in the future. 

These actions of avoiding metals, in the future become compulsions because of the repeated obsession to avoid.

This will lead to someone suffering from Metallophobia developing OCD and or depression. 

As metals are found to be almost everywhere around us, avoiding them can be stressful.

At times, one is unable to avoid his fear stimuli which causes very high levels of anxiety.

This anxiety then turns into full-blown panic attacks, risking one’s life in severe cases. 

Metallophobia can also result in other phobias. For example, someone who fears metal will also fear gold (Aurophobia) and or fear of cars (Amaxophobia). 

Metallophobia is an irrational fear of metals. It is a specific phobia whose name derives from a Greek word ‘metallo’ meaning metals and ‘phobos’ meaning fear. 

Symptoms of Metallophobia 

All anxiety disorders, including specific phobias, have anxiety as their pivotal symptom.

Therefore, someone suffering from Metallophobia will experience extreme anxiety when exposed to their fear stimuli, metals.  

Specific phobias are irrational fears, however, Metallophobia is not wholly irrational.

This is because there are a few metals which can be toxic. Generally, people avoid getting exposed to these metals because they can bring severe damage to one’s health.

For example, certain types of diseases, cancer, skin allergies etc. 

However, the exaggerated levels of anxiety and or panic attacks one experiences in Metallophobia are what labels it as an irrational fear.

This is because one’s fear takes over his mind and severely affects his physical and mental health. 

Actions of avoiding metals, as mentioned earlier are repetitive. They maintain one’s fear by making him feel safe in the absence of security.

Though, in the long run these acts maintain one’s fear of metals and his phobia becomes more severe. 

According to the DSM-V, to be diagnosed with Metallophobia, one needs to experience anxiety lasting for at least 6 months and at least 3-5 symptoms (from the list mentioned below). 

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

Causes of Metallophobia 

All anxiety disorders, including specific phobias have no real/definite cause. They are caused by either a genetic predisposition and or environmental factors. 

According to the genetic/biological model, specific phobias are developed due to a genetic predisposition.

Someone who has a family history of anxiety disorders has a higher chance of developing Metallophobia.

This is because any alteration in the genes of his parents will be transferred to him. 

An imbalance in the neurotransmitter levels of the brain can also be one of the many reasons as to why one develops Metallophobia.

These alterations are low dopamine levels and high serotonin levels.

This genetic tendency to develop a specific phobia is further explained by the Diathesis-stress relationship.

This suggests that someone with a genetic predisposition will develop Metallophobia only in the presence of the correct environmental trigger event.

For instance, someone who has a fear of machines (Mechanophobia) is very likely to develop Metallophobia because machines are made up of metals.

If one was injured when using a machine, they’ll forever fear it and can develop this phobia. 

Similarly, an individual can develop this fear if he was intoxicated by metals and or heard of someone else suffering from adverse health conditions due to it. 

Metallophobia can also be a learned behaviour.

Someone whose parents are afraid of metals will learn to fear them because of the way their parents cted when exposed to them. 

To conclude, Metallophobia has no real cause. It can be developed for a number of different reasons. 

Treatment of Metallophobia 

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

Like all the other specific phobias, Metallophobia is treated by a number of different methods: Psychological treatment and Biological treatment. 

• Psychological Treatment 

• Exposure Therapy

It is one of the most frequently used ways of treating patients with Metallophobia (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 a metal (gold) 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 a metal.

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 metals. 

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 metals, 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. Metallophobia is defined as the irrational fear of metals.

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.  

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) 

This is another effective therapy used to treat Metallophobia.

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

• 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.

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (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 Metallophobia, the patient will be advised on how to overcome his fear of metals.

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

• Yoga/Meditation 

They are not just one of the many treatment therapies used for Metallophobia, 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. 

• Biological Treatment 

• Medicinal Drugs 

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

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 Metallophobia, 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).

Frequently Asked Questions 

Citations 

• https://psychtimes.com/metallophobia-fear-of-metal/
• https://common-phobias.com/Metallo/phobia.htm
• https://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/metallophobia/intro.htm
• https://fearof.org/metallophobia/