I´d like to know something about strategies (personal or group therapies, drugs...)useful to treat efficiently the extreme fear many women feel to breast cancer. This fear or phobia of cancer can exist in family risk women but also in women with no higher risk.
The best way in my opinion to get rid of cancer Phobia of any kund is to go for a check up to a cancer Specialist from time to time. For breats cancer phobia, the best thing is to self -check from time to time of there is any LUMP felt in the breast.A cancer Doctor can help as to how to do it. There are soem cancer, like familial cancer which gets developed in the following generations, if any body close in the family had suffered from Cancer of the breast in particular.So such people should check from time to time if any signs or symptons do appear.
Dear Luis,
when you are hypersensitive for something or suffer from vulnerability for anxiety, you have to tie the anxiety to something or somewhere. It can be the breast or long words or blood or injections and so on. Check the list of phobias:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phobias
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Prasanta Kumar Ray
With a real phobia a reality check does not always help
Cancerophobia is an example of specific phobias (as implied by Béatrice). Specific phobias are classified as anxiety disorders under DSM-5; therefore, this question should be directed towards psychiatrists or clinical psychologists (as correctly suggested by Attila). My answer is limited to the following two comments: (1) this condition includes persistent and irrational fear interfering with everyday's life. Persistent and irrational means that it does not go away when cancer is not diagnosed. It is not resolved with negative diagnostic tests. (2) In general, phobias have been treated by pharmacotherapy (e.g. SSRI, SNRI, benzodiazepines...) and psychotherapy (e.g. CBT...). In severe breast cancerophobia, prophylactic mastectomy is an option, but it is surrounded with conflicting opinions.
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