This page tackles phobias concerning cats from two perspectives. Firstly, I discuss the unusual situation where the family’s cat is terrified or has a strong dislike of the husband; the cat suffers from “husband phobia”. Secondly, I present a couple of videos which discuss a person’s cat phobia, called “ailurophobia” (liking cats is called ailurophilia). In this case, the phobia is cured.
Husband Phobia
It is perhaps unfair to pick out the husband. A cat might be fearful of the wife but amongst wives and husbands it is probable that husbands are more likely to be the “victim”.
The two obvious reasons why a cat has “husband phobia” is because the cat is not well socialised to accept men and/or the cat may have had an early bad experience with a man. Secondly, the husband may be around the home less and when he arrives home from work he may (a) make noise (b) be wound up, move quickly and be a bit scary – to the wife as well 😉 (c) try and make friends with his cat and in doing so make matters worse because the approach is too sharp, noisy and rough.
At heart, the way forward is to try and socialise the cat to the husband. This may be difficult because the cat’s dislike of men is fixed. The cat may have an association between men and a bad experience. It may be possible to gradually unlock this connection by:
- letting the husband feed the cat and perhaps use treats and to touch and stroke the cat at the same time.
- letting the husband gently approach and play with the cat
- making sure the husband speaks at a lower volume and becomes less dominant around the cat (getting down on hands and knees to approach the cat). The whole demeanor of the husband should be less unintentionally threatening. Movements should be slow, handling should be gentle, voice should be melllow and calm etc.! Patience should be the key because my feeling is that if a cat is husband-phobic it will take a long time to change things.
However, a pleasant spin-off might be that the husband becomes a better husband for the wife at the same time!
Cat Phobia
In the video the cat phobia was simply described by a “life coach” as being caused by a mental association that develops because of a single incident. A phobia is a “neuro-association”. Something happens that is traumatic and the person links feelings to it. It is learned behavior. On the basis that cat phobia or any phobia is learned behavior, it can be unlearned. The connection between cat and fear is broken. The lady in question describes the moment, at 14 years of age, when her cat phobia was created. Over many years the fear was hardened and built on.
The videos show a transformation in the woman’s feelings towards cats. However, disappointingly, we don’t see what the life coach does with the “patient”. Anyway, the video is instructional and it does show how a fear of cats can be radically and quickly cured.
http://youtu.be/IJb42-7RWGQ
http://youtu.be/nrtnkuEjdMY
An interesting aspect of this is that a lot British people holiday in the Mediterranean. These are countries such as Greece, the Greek island of Corfu, Cyprus, Malta, Spain etc.. Stray cats and outdoor cats are commonplace. A person who is fearful of cats cannot go on holiday in these places. If the husband or wife has a particular desire to routinely holiday in the Mediterranean a partner with a cat phobia is a major problem.
P.S. Videos sometimes go wrong because they are pulled from YouTube for various reasons. If that has happened, I apologize but it is out of my control.
P.P.S. Photo (modified) by by MrGuilt on Flickr
I’ve never know anyone who admitted to a fear of cats. I’ve known plenty of people who say they don’t like or hate cats. But, I think that we pretty much established that cat haters are really phobics.
I’ve known two people with cat phobia, one was a man who lived in the flat above the second vets where I worked, when he and his wife first moved in, he came down the stairs showing the whites of his eyes, he was so terrified that he’d see a cat.
After a while we got friendly and with a bit of persuasion he came nearer and nearer to kittens, then adult cats and although he wouldn’t have one in his home, he didn’t feel terrified at the thought of seeing one.
The other was a girl, a neighbour’s daughter, our late mother soon had her converted to liking cats, it was just that she hadn’t known any.
I can’t think of anything worse than having cat phobia, those people miss out on so much! But having said that, I can understand it because I freeze at the sight of a spider or a worm lol
As the guy in the video said, everyone has a phobia of some sort. I am not sure that it is completely true but a lot of people have a phobia and some don’t realise it.
thats very true its just to different things
I find there are certain cats who prefer men. My cat Gigi in Canada is like that. So is Piki who will come here eventually.
But humans fearing cats I have never heard of before.
I agree that there are cats that prefer men and some prefer woman. That is about all one can say. It may be pure socialisation – raised by a woman or a man – or a tauma suffered at the hands of a woman or man. Or something that few people discuss, a cat might might have a pure preference as inherited.
i just think its an excuse not to like cats. I know there are people out there who for health reasons get asthama around cats which is fair enough. I do think there are certain cats that love men more. i think your got to be the right kind of man to love cats i.e a feeling type, or sensual type person.