Clown Phobias (Coulrophobia) - Cure your Clown Phobia or Fear of Clowns

As mentioned in the article Weird Phobias - how do you cure a strange or unusual phobia?, phobias differentiate themselves from fears due to the strength of reaction from the sufferer. This is invariably due to the fact that the internal representation the sufferer makes in their mind contains a fast moving visual element.

This explains why the fear of spiders, snakes, and moths are quite common - it's very easy to imagine these creatures moving quickly towards you or moving erratically around you.

But Clowns? Not really known for their speed are they?

What have Clowns ever done?

So what element of clowning leads to their high fear factor?

Firstly, often when people talk of having a clown phobia, they are actually talking about a fear. This means that the movement element is not necessarily part of their internal reaction.

On the other hand there are several common elements that come up when people get close to clowns. Most people's first encounter with clowns is within a loud, busy environment as children. Loud noises are one of only two natural fears (the other being a fear of falling) that humans have, so perhaps that is the key more often that not.

A clown coming up to someone and, in that moment of slight apprehension (which we'd all have given the general unpredictability of clowns), blasting a horn or squirting water in their face, can easily generate a fight or flight response. It doesn't take much to generalize that single event into a full blown clown phobia, especially within these environments where adrenaline, apprehension, and excitement are already running a little high.

Personally, I've always considered it rather weird that parents tell their children to keep away from strangers, then encourage them to interact with people in strange clothes and/or makeup - clowns, father Christmas, street performers etc.

What's the easiest way to cure Clown Phobias?

The idea that the fear of clowns is somehow different to other phobias because it is often hard to remember the original stimulus is inaccurate. If you can access the fear then you can, with a minimum of effort, fix the phobia.

The easiest and quickest way to remove a phobia or a fear is to use the NLP Fast Phobia Cure (read NLP for Phobias - Can you cure a phobia with NLP?), which you can either use yourself or get someone to talk you through. You can also talk another person through it should you be hoping to help someone else with their phobia.

If you discover that you don't actually have a phobia, but still feel apprehensive then you may want to try another NLP technique such as Mommy, make it go away! or any of the NLP confidence building exercises on this site.