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philipy philipy
 

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What, if anything, is the opposite of a phobia?

If a phobia in an uncontrollable, unfounded fear of something, what is the opposite? You might like to consider terms that mean something like:

- Uncontrollable, unfounded liking for something

- Lack of fear of something that it would be appropriate or beneficial to fear

PS If you want to offer a different definition of "phobia" and work from that, go for it.
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lon lon
 
 April 25, 2009 06:57 PM
I think the word you want is "engouement," originally a French word. In French, it literally means "something stuck in the throat," but it has come to mean, essentially, "inexplicable fondness." It would be used like this:

"Even though I used to find them disgusting, and I know they are bad for me, I have developed a real engouement for onion rings."

Seems to me that, if a phobia is essentially an irrational dislike or fear of something, the opposite would be a somewhat irrational fondness for something.

And speaking of misplaced affinity...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlr94KlDrFA
Source(s):
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/engouement

Asker's Rating:
• It was a toss up between this answer and Demanda's. This is a great word, but the downside is no one will know what it means. :)


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philipy philipy
 
April 25, 2009 07:16 PM
Never heard of the word. Very nice answer.

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drmatt drmatt
 
April 25, 2009 06:41 PM
For me, the opposite of "phobia" is "naivete". Being naive seems to be a lacking in knowledge of something... especially fear.

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jasoncalac... jasoncalac...
 
April 25, 2009 06:46 PM
Well, what is the opposite of fear? According to the thesaurus near antonyms are: aplomb, assurance, boldness, confidence, self-assurance, self-confidence; courage, dauntlessness, fearlessness, fortitude.

I would say courage/confidence about something. So if you have a fear of flying the opposite would be confidence/courage in flying. This makes sense to me because if you had someone who was terrified of getting in an airplane the opposite person would be loving getting in a plane and doing stunts (i.e. a fighter pilot).

Source(s):
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fear


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philipy philipy
 
April 25, 2009 07:18 PM
Interesting idea.

Based on that line of thought, I'm thinking "thrill-seeking" might be a candidate. Though I suppose phobias are specific, and thrill-seeking sounds general.

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pmacdon1 pmacdon1
 
April 25, 2009 07:17 PM
To me the answer is obvious, Love.

Love is an "Uncontrollable, (sometimes) unfounded liking for something."

And it can cause "Lack of fear of something that it would be appropriate or beneficial to fear."

Plus, phobia was originally just a suffix, its opposite being philia, the greek word for love.

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maurice maurice
 
April 25, 2009 07:26 PM
Aren't you asking for the opposite of the entire meaning of the word, 'phobia', not just the opposite of the 'fear' part of the word?

If that is the case then the opposite of having 'an uncontrollable, unfounded fear of something...' would be to have a calm and normal and reasonable appreciation of that thing.

For example, the opposite of having 'agoraphobia', or the fear of open spaces, would be to have an appreciation for wide open spaces.

Source: my opinion

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philipy philipy
 
April 28, 2009 06:05 PM
No I don't think so. For the same reason that (for most people) the opposite of "most crooked" would not be "least honest".

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maurice maurice
 
April 29, 2009 01:18 AM
Good point, I didn't think of that.

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srgothard srgothard
 
April 25, 2009 09:24 PM
Using roots of words, I would say "philia." Both phobia and philia imply an unnatural state, but one is aversion and one is attraction.
  • phobia: persistent, irrational fear of something
  • philia: unnatural attraction to something
For instance, Arachnophobia is the irrational fear of spiders, and Arachnophilia (besides being a great HTML editor) is the unnatural attraction to spiders (and webs). Pedophilia is an unnatural attraction to children. Hemophobia is an abnormal fear of blood, and the condition Hemophilia was named based on the words "blood" and "to love."
Source(s):
http://dictionary.reference.com


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demanda demanda
 
April 25, 2009 09:40 PM
Literally, it would be the suffix "-philia" which means an "abnormal attraction to." For example, "necrophilia" is an attraction to or obsession of dead people, and necrophobia is a fear of dead people or death in general. Another good example of this would be hydrophobic (being fearful of water) and hydrophillic (having an affinity for water.)

I also immediately thought of the word "fetish," which can mean "an abonormally obsessive preoccupation of attachment to something." I think this could be seen as an opposite to phobia in the sense that someone who has a foot fetish is on the opposite end of the spectrum of someone with podophobia (fear of feet).
http://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/feet-2.JPG
Source(s):
definitions courtesy of:
http://www.answers.com/


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philipy philipy
 
April 26, 2009 12:13 AM
Good answer.

Philia is an interesting candidate. For my taste it's probably used to often in words like "francophile" , i.e. some one's who loves all things French, to be the best fit.

Fetish is very good. Though I always assume fetishes have to do with sex, so I'm not sure it's broad. But things like fetish, infatuation, addiction could be in the right ball park.

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demanda demanda
 
April 26, 2009 02:56 AM
I don't understand how words like Francophile keep -philia from being a good choice. It still follows the same theme...a Francophobic (also called Gallophobic) is the opposite of a Francophile.

Fetishes aren't always related to sex. The word "mania" could also be an option, but it often has a negative connotation.

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philipy philipy
 
April 26, 2009 04:22 AM
I was looking for a word that like phobia means you rationally know there is no foundation for it, but you can't help the strong feeling anyway, or easily overcome it. Things like Francophilia don't work for that.

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demanda demanda
 
April 26, 2009 05:21 PM
I get what you're saying, but sometimes there *are* foundations for phobias, i.e., my father was killed by a clown, so I now have coulrophobia. Just like sometimes there are obvious reasons for philia and sometimes they just inexplicably exist. Same thing with fetishes.

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philipy philipy
 
April 26, 2009 07:19 PM
I'd guess all phobias have some cause, though it might remain unknown. By "unfounded" I didn't mean so much "without cause", but more "without a real threat", and even more than that, "known as such by the phobic person themselves".

At the moment I'm leaning towards fixation and mania as the words I like best.

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sukmrsing sukmrsing
 
April 26, 2009 05:44 PM
""Mania "" I think

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