Many people find clowns scary.  Scary clowns, such as the villain in the Steven King movie “It”, are often used to chilling effect in the media.  Coulrophobia, on the other hand, is a psychological disorder.  It is more than a mere aversion a clown with a scary face.  Typical onset of coulrophobia is sometime in adolescence.  Sufferers can lead normal lives, just maybe with fewer trips to the circus than others.  Indeed, someone afflicted with coulrophobia would find a circus very scary.

Treatment options, as with most phobias, are slim.  The sum total, in fact, of psychological research has produced exactly one treatment: encounter therapy.  Encounter therapy is where a trained psychologist forces you to face your fear, in this case scary clowns.  You might start by watching a movie about clowns.  A trip to the circus might follow.  If the person didn’t find this too unbearably scary, then a personal meeting with a clown might be the last step.  Hopefully, with the careful guidance of a trained psychologist, the person would be able to overcome his or her irrational fear of clowns.

Some view coulrophobia not as a true disorder, but rather a sense of being “creeped-out” that has been medicalized.  Critics point to the fact that there really is nothing to fear from clowns.  Other phobias are, at least in some way, tied to a specific threat of bodily injury.  Fear or heights, for instance, can be said to be the fear of falling from a great height.  Fear of sharks, or enclosed spaces, carry a specific, albeit rare, bodily injury component.  Some psychologists say that, because there is no actual physical threat from clowns, that there can be no true phobia, and people are just “creeped-out”.

That’s not to say that some clowns aren’t scary, however.  Indeed, scary clowns are a well-recognized archetype.  Along with “hobo clowns”, mimes, and other types, the scary clown often makes appearances at circuses.  The scary clown will usually serve as the “villain” in the clowns’ comedic routines.  His plans are often thwarted by the other clowns.

Once again, though, a slight feeling of unease at seeing a deliberately scary clown is not the same as coulrophobia.  Coulrophobia is a debilitating, neurological disorder that can have drastic, and negative, effects on a person’s quality of life.

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