Fear of Contact with Dirt or Mysophobia

For those of you who watched the television series The Monk, you would be able to relate to this kind of phobia. Sometimes referred to as germophobia or germaphobia, bacillophobia, or bacteriophobia, this type of fear is associated with the obsessive-compulsive behavior of recurring washing of hands even in the tiniest possible contact with germs, bacteria, or dirt – even an imagined contact with any or all of the mentioned.

This outlandish and recurrent phobia on dirt has other medical names such as rupophobia, rhypophobia, molysomophobia, and molysmophobia. And mysophobe is the medical term used to describe someone suffering from this type of phobia called mysophobia.

An American psychoanalyst, Harry Stack Sullivan, offered a variation of the description of this fear of dirt, stating that while the obsessive-compulsive behavior connected with this odd behavior is hinged on the fear of dirt, the mindset of the said individual is not on the dirt or germs but on the act of consistently washing the hands.

The person afflicted with this type of phobia feels that he or she must always constantly wash his or her hands no matter what. Though seemingly connected, a person with mysophobia and an individual with obsessive-compulsive behavior are two distinct beings with different disorders.

An individual with OCD (obsessive-compulsive behavior) will continuously wash his or her hands because of the weird thought of always putting order into his or her life while the latter will wash his or her hands over and over again to get rid of germs or bacteria imagined to be there.

The cause of this phobia of dirt and anything unclean can really be very hard to trace since trauma and fear can now be acquired even without personally experiencing anything similar to what is being feared about, thanks to modern media – movies, television, and the prints.

Medical experts have observed a sudden ascension of the numbers of people affected with this phobia especially in the advent of HIV and AIDS. And the degree of reaction to this phobia varies.

For many, the feeling of tension and extreme anxiety grips the afflicted whenever he or she is around areas where there is a huge amount of dirt or germ presence.

Increased heart pump rate is the initial effect and this can eventually cause the individual to feel sick and nauseous. The end reaction, if washing of the hands seem to be not enough, and if these situations recur, is for the person to cut himself off from the mainstream – the normal society.

People who have beyond the norm and excessive washing inclinations are more likely affected with dirt or germ phobia.

Those who avoid activities that include exposure to dirt and other things deemed dirty are also candidates for this phobia.