Causes
Like all fears and phobias, emetophobia most commonly develops from a childhood fear that has never been outgrown. When a traumatic event is witnessed to a young child the subconscious mind, as the body's 'protector', works out the best way to prevent the incident repeating itself. The way this works in practice is that the subconscious attaches negative emotions or feelings to vomiting and in future this teaches the person to steer away from 'dangerous' situations.
There are many factors that can cause a legitimate case of emetophobia. It can affect the minds of young children, but Emetophobia can also be in the brain at any age. In a clinical case study by Dr. Frank M. Datillio of Harvard Medical School and the Perelman School of Medicine, he refers to cases from the 1980s that reference how a number of children who are affected by emetophobia are mentally disabled. He quotes Barmann’s findings and says “ a history of self-stimulatory hand-mouthing and ruminative vomiting.” Dr. Datillio also illustrates how many adults are affected through the results of gastrointestinal surgery.
Dr. Angela L. Davidson et al. conducted an experiment where it was concluded through various surveys that people suffering from emetophobia are more likely to have an internal locus of control pertaining to their everyday life as well as health-related matters. A locus of control is an individual’s perception of where control comes from. Having an internal locus of control means that an individual perceives that they have their own control over a situation whereas an external locus of control means that an individual perceives that some things are out of their control. She explains how this phobia is created through the locus of control by stating, “Thus far, it seems reasonable to stipulate that individuals with a vomiting phobia deem events as being within their control and may therefore find it difficult to relinquish this control during the act of vomiting, thus inducing a phobia.”
In an internet survey conducted by Dr. Joshua D. Lipsitz et al. given to emetophobic people, respondents gave many different reasons as to why they became emetophobic. Among some of the causes listed were severe bouts of vomiting as children and being firsthand witnesses to severe vomiting in others due to illness, pregnancy, or alcoholism.
Alternatively, there may be no identifiable cause of emetophobia.
Emetophobia is still relatively under researched for a relatively common phobia.
Read more about this topic: Emetophobia