What is "Trypophobia"?

     Recently, on the website especially among the Korean community websites, I could find frequently this comment about a specific picture; "Ah... it's annoying. I have trypophobia, please delete it this post or modify it by deleting the picture" or "You are so rude! if you posted this disgusting picture, you should write down "(warning: disgusting picture)" on the title. You don't take care of people with trypophobia!"
     Interestingly, I didn't know what trypophobia was at that time even though I am a psychologist. I learned what trypophobia is from other internet users. I started having interested in trypophobia and I wondered why people labled themselves as a person with mental illness on the web circumstance.

     The term trypophobia ^[1] was coined in 2005, a combination of the Greek trypo (punching, drilling or boring holes) and phobia.^[2] Although it is not recognized in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,^[2][3] thousands of people claim to be affected by the phobia, which involves the fear of objects with small holes, such as beehives, ant hills and lotus seed heads.^[3]                     From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia.
     Also, I found interesting site "http://www.trypophobia.com/" So you can explore this site to get more information about trypophobia.

     Through this experience to figure out what trypophobia is, I found a few interesting things.

1) Most of cases that people say "I have trypophobia" are not real.
     - As a psychologist or a counselor, it is dangerous to be convinced of people's complaints about their symptoms are false. I also recognize someone might be able to have real trypophobia. However, it seemed like there are too much people who have trypophobia on the web. Even they can give the comment with the post including a picture can induce trypophobia reaction. That seems like they don't have real trypophobia, but they have natural reaction against disgusting picture. If they have real trypophobia, then they have to meet all of the criteria from DSM-V. Paradoxically, they don't meet at least Criterion C and Criterion F. If you have real trypophobia, then you cannot leave any comment about the post because you strongly want to avoid the situation. However, most of cases are that they can leave a comment about the post watching the picture or that they even post the picture saying "I have trypophobia, but I am trying to post it!" That makes them not meet Criterion C. Also, if they have trypophobia, then they will encounter many situations that triggers their symptoms in their daily life. However, they only exist on the web. It is about Criterion F.

2) They see the extreme pictures, and they think they have trypophobia.
     - Let's see the three pictures first.

How do you think about them? aren't they disgusting? I think so. Even though I don't think I have trypophobia, those pictures make me feel disgusting and uncomfortable. However most of cases that they have trypophobia are the cases that watched that kind of picture, and they think their feeling is not good, so that they have trypophobia. However it is not trypophobia actually.

Let's see the other pictures.

Are you still feeling disgusting? and feel panic attack? I think most of cases are not. Still you feel uncomfortable, and then it makes you close this blog immediately, then you might have trypophobia, other then, you don't have trypophobia. Actually, if you could withstand previous picture and you are reading this sentence, that proves you don't have trypophobia. In other words, if you have real trypophobia, you should have closed this blog at the previous disgusting three pictures.





     Again, interestingly, in the Korea (because I don't know about other country situation), trypophobia is used for some distorted way. Especially, on the web, they even abuse this term too much to attact concerns from other people because if they say "I have trypophobia," then they will get many feedback about it in negative or positive ways.
     There are so many materials to trigger trypophobia around us. Even now when I look around myself, and I can find 4 materials. If they have real trypophobia, then they cannot continue their life normally, and they had to see a doctor or psyhologist. However, there are not many cases reported officially as much as people complaints about trypophobia on the web.
     In many cases, people have misconception about mental health and illness. Moreover, they can access too much information about mental illness through internet no matter what the information is correct or not, they labled themselves with unproved information. In other words, people abuse wrong mental illness term to attact concerns on the web circumstance.
     It seems pretty bad situation. Personally, in Korea, I still think there are too much misconception about mental illenss and kind of myth about mental illness. Moreover, those distorted information might expedite the misconception and make the situations worse in the mental health community. I am worried about those negative impact on the community in Korea because it is on developmental stage currently in the country.
     Often, I could meet some client who is over labeling or under labeling about their symptoms. It is hard to keep the balance between over and under diagnoses, but it is pretty important to diagnose their symptoms correctly. Even though I am not a person who are strongly supporting trypophobia existing, I need to keep the balance because it might be real in some cases.