Polyphobia could have been initiated by fear of a particular thing which led one to fear things associated with the thing that they fear the most. For instance, one fears having fever or pyrexiophobia, this can lead to fear of getting sick or fear of having disease, fear of needles, fear of drugs, fear of doctors, fear of hospitals, fear of dying and the list goes on and on. These people are usually mentally unstable and may have an underlying obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or sometimes may have an underlying psychotic disorder.

People with this fear are severely debilitated and are not able to function normally in society. Their fears usually paralyzes them and they do not know how to act with other people, or even how to behave with just himself or herself. They are usually introverts and loners, with no or very few friends. They also usually live alone but living alone can also scare them thus most of these people need to be institutionalized initially for them to be able to be guided by their psychiatrists.

Anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications are usually needed in these patients, without which they are unable to function normally in society. These patients may also have suicidal ideations for they may think that they are better off dead that worrying about everything around them.

With proper guidance and treatment, most of these patients are able to get back to society and live an almost normal life.

People who are scared of progress are those who are usually scared of the unknown. People might have been conditioned by their religious beliefs that change is something that can disrupt their normally peaceful life and they would prefer a laid back and primitive way of living, free from the distractions of cell phones and computers for instance, and can be seen in the Amish people for example or those living in the tribes in the jungle. For some, they believe that progress can hasten the end of the world because progress usually entails destruction of mother earth thus doomsday is at their reach.
People with this fear would prefer using primitive stuff or would refuse to have a cell phone or a computer. They will prefer the old pen and paper approach or may even send mail via post or air mail than sending an email which can convey their message across the globe in a few seconds.

Treatment of this phobia should comprise of education with psychotherapy. Medications for anxiety and depression may be helpful in some patients.

Body lice, may it be lice on the head, body, or pubic area is completely annoying and they may be difficult to treat. For those how had been infested with these creatures, they have experienced unbearable scratching and excoriations that they found difficult to treat and was extremely humiliating and embarrassing. Having this infestation can be caused by poor hygiene and thus these people who might have been accidentally infested are scared that they will be labeled as one who does not like to keep themselves clean.

Pubic lice is also considered a sexually transmitted disease and this particular species of lice prefers thick hairs and thus may also be found in your eyebrows, or hairs of your armpits. People with this fear may also have an exaggerated image of these creatures in their minds thus they fear lice.

These people will avoid close contact with other people, especially in crowded places for fear that being close to another who might potentially be infested can also infect them.
Treatment of these lice usually requires repeated treatments and may be difficult to eradicate. They should be taught proper hygiene and eradication of the infestation helps in alleviating their fears.

Stuttering is a speech disorder wherein sounds, syllables or words are repeated or prolonged and this disrupts the normal flow of speech. This affects a person’s quality of life because people find it difficult to communicate with others and people might have also a hard time understanding people who stutter or might find it even annoying. Stuttering can be a source of ridicule and humiliation and this can lead to a full blown phobia called psellismophobia.

People who stutter may avoid talking in public or might limit themselves to talking in a few words as long as they can get their point across. Most will go to a speech therapist to improve their manner of speaking and improve their quality of life.

We must remember that stuttering is not equivalent to lack of intelligence. In fact, most people who stutter are extremely intelligent and is said to be that their brains process their thoughts too fast and their speech can’t cope up with their thoughts. Stuttering is something that can also be improved and those people who stutter should be educated that they can get help.

Persons with this fear might have experienced being tied down or pinned by a bully and tickled until he or she felt out of breath and subsequently associated being tickled with being unable to breath.
For others, they could just not stand being tickled because of an exaggerated bodily response thus they fear it.
Being “tickled to death” is also a term that may be a trigger for this fear because some are scared that they can literally die if they are tickled to hard thus they avoid it at all costs.

People with this fear usually avoid bodily contact and they may be introverts. They would rather be alone that in a room full of kids for instance who are rowdy and may tickle each other for fun. They may also fear the sight of feathers because it gives them the ‘tingles’ and associate it with being tickled.

Others might have watched a puppet show as a child and had terrible nightmares about it, or have watched in the movie stories of killer puppets thus they unconsciously conditioned themselves to fear all puppets.

Some might have developed this fear by watching Pinocchio who was a puppet and they fear that if they become bad, they will be turned into a puppet and not the other way around.
Little do these people realize that other shows such as Sesame Street is also made of puppets but these puppets are less scary and look more alive to them.

People with this fear may hide when they see puppets and will do anything to avoid watching puppet shows. They should be taught and conditioned not to fear puppets because these are inanimate objects being controlled by the puppeteer and they cannot come to life.

One might have gotten a really bad infection in the past that caused spiking fevers and long hospital stays and the experience could have been perceived as traumatic for that person. Others might have also heart that fever may be the initial sign of cancer such as leukemia thus they get paranoid when they get fever. Others might have also had a bout of malaria or had friends who had this infection and witnessed the suffering of these patients thus they fear getting fever or getting sick in general.

People with this fear can be obsessed with taking their body temperature and even just a little rise in their temperature may cause them to feel extremely anxious and will consult a physician right away. They will immediately take anti-pyretics and will confine themselves to their homes to make sure that they don’t get sick more.

Treatment includes proper education of these patients, coupled with psychotherapy for some whose quality of life has been affected by this phobia.

Most commonly, people with this phobia have experienced hemorrhoids for instance and thus they had painful and excruciating bowel movements thus causing them to fear rectal disease. Others might have family members of friends who was diagnosed to have rectal cancer and had to go through anal resection with colostomy and thus they subsequently believe that any changes in their bowel habits could mean cancer or other more serious diseases of the rectum.

One might have also undergone colonosocopy or proctoscopy, or a simple digital anal exam and thus they fear any manipulation of their rectum or anus subsequently.

Persons with this fear may have an obsession with their bowel movement and would worry if they have any changes in their stool characteristics, habits, or if they experience any discomfort or pain in their rectum. Those who fear disease more than the fear of manipulation would subject themselves to having frequent colonoscopy examinations to make sure that there are no masses growing in their rectum.

Treatment may be in the form of proper education of rectal disease in these patients.

Most commonly, people with this phobia have experienced hemorrhoids for instance and thus they had painful and excruciating bowel movements thus causing them to fear rectal disease. Others might have family members of friends who was diagnosed to have rectal cancer and had to go through anal resection with colostomy and thus they subsequently believe that any changes in their bowel habits could mean cancer or other more serious diseases of the rectum.

One might have also undergone colonosocopy or proctoscopy, or a simple digital anal exam and thus they fear any manipulation of their rectum or anus subsequently.

Persons with this fear may have an obsession with their bowel movement and would worry if they have any changes in their stool characteristics, habits, or if they experience any discomfort or pain in their rectum. Those who fear disease more than the fear of manipulation would subject themselves to having frequent colonoscopy examinations to make sure that there are no masses growing in their rectum.

Treatment may be in the form of proper education of rectal disease in these patients.

First this could mean fear of being severely punished. This image of being punished could be due to stories in the past of people being hit repeatedly by a cane or stick as punishment or some that were even “caned-to-death”. This gruesome image could have cause rhabdophobia in some persons.

Another meaning of rhabdophobia is the fear of being criticized. People may sometimes find criticism as something that can help them improve themselves or their performance at work but rhabdophobes will find this instead humiliating and degrading to be criticized and these are people who usually take criticisms poorly or may even hate the person who criticized them.

Lastly, rhabdophobia can be used to define the fear of the magic wand, it being usually in the form of a rod and this fear could be brought about by the fear of magic per se.

People with this fear become extremely anxious when faced with any of the above and may have full blown panic attacks. Rods of any form can cause them also to feel anxious because they are reminded of the thing they fear most.

Cognitive and behavioral therapy may benefit some patients with this fear.