9781422280614

14

Phobias

partly to blame—if the news talks constantly about snakebites, some people might find their ophidiophobia getting worse. But it’s a strange thing: cowboys have been finding snakes in their boots for a long time, but they don’t all have ophidiophobia. They just laugh it off (and probably kill the snake). So what makes one person able to laugh something off, while another can’t? We don’t really know. It does seem possible that there may be a genetic cause, meaning some people are naturally more anxious than others, and that gets passed down to their kids. The extreme fear of needles is

It’s not uncommon to be afraid of a snake that could hurt you. But if you truly have ophidiophobia, your fear is way out of proportion to the actual threat.