With an upcoming dentist appointment, I figured the time had come to do a little research on the fear of dentists, or dentophobia, as it were.
No, I personally am not afraid of dentists, and I never have been, although the way I forget to schedule appointments it might look like I am. That, however, is simply due to a tendency towards procrastination and disorganization.
But we're not here to discuss my faults, vast though that topic may be, we're here - or rather I'm here to blab on about dentophobia, and you're here to either read my words or ignore them, and/or post spam comments below.
Though I think the first thing I'll mention won't be something I just looked up, but rather a random tidbit I knew but never found useful before now. The fear of dentists is not new, in fact it goes back quite a while. You can post in the comments if you know of an earlier recorded case, but the earliest case i've run into was a short piece of writing by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) (whenever he lived, Arthurian times, anyone?) who wrote, in his usual sarcastic tongue in cheek style of the torture he'd undergone by the dentist, mentioning his terror of the man and place, and the laughing gas used upon him to allow these gruesome acts to be carried out.
But a little research has allowed me to find out some other information of note, such as the fact that there exists a foundation going by the name of the Dental Fears Research Clinic. Yes, it gets its own clinic. I want an Arrachnophobia research clinic, not that I have that phobia either, but at least it's understandable, considering the existence of poisonous spiders - which plays right into my actual fear, that of getting bitten by a poisonous spider. If I were to know that a certain spider is for a fact not poisonous, then I would handle it quite easily, but I think we (read I ) are getting off topic once again.
Another interesting fact I found out is that dentophobia is 30% heritable, which apparently indicates a difference in people which can't be explained by environment or random chance, and therefore must be explained by genetics. A rather fascinating concept, and one I must remember to look into further.
They say that for dentophobia, like other phobias, the best cure is to expose yourself to the source of fear, and become gradually more unaffected by it.
I'd go into more detail, but I have to run - I have an appointment
Hyperbole out
Note: Image source = https://pixabay.com
