| In the universe of phobias out there that people may | | | | Lately, in an effort to accommodate the issues |
| unfortunately suffer from, the abnormal fear of clowns | | | | surrounding children being frightened by clown themes |
| that some people experience, called coulrophobia, | | | | in pediatric medical wards, hospitals have tended to |
| oftentimes isn't taken as seriously as it should be. | | | | shift to other more innocuous decoration such as |
| Make no mistake; it's a real and serious fear, though | | | | clouds or balloons and the like. Coulrophobia seems to |
| the term itself isn't used very often - if at all - in | | | | be more widespread than was first believed, with |
| psychology or by psychiatrists or clinical psychologists, | | | | many carnivals or festivals being forced to cancel the |
| so don't clown around with coulrophobia. | | | | services of clowns or clown supply companies when |
| In many cases, coulrophobia develops in young children | | | | large numbers of festival-goers began to complain in a |
| who are startled or frightened by the appearance of a | | | | more vocal fashion about their fear of clowns. |
| clown in their environment. For some reason, that fear | | | | Coulrophobia can be a painful slap in the face to |
| is carried over into adulthood, and though a sufferer | | | | circuses, also, where the presence of clowns - whose |
| may understand on one level that a clown isn't usually | | | | trade goes back for thousands of years in almost |
| anything to be afraid of, on a deeper level it can be a | | | | every historic culture in some fashion or another - has |
| debilitating experience for many. | | | | come to be an expected entertainment. |
| Because of the nature of coulrophobia, it sometimes | | | | In the end, it's helpful to realize that actual clinical |
| can affect the ability of men or women to apply | | | | coulrophobia is no laughing matter. People can suffer |
| makeup, or even Halloween-type paints, to their faces. | | | | sheer panic and anxiety even at the thought of being |
| Even the thought of seeing a clown or being | | | | confronted by a clown, and there's not much that can |
| confronted by one can incapacitate a person when | | | | be done to treat that fear. |
| the phobia is in its most serious clinical manifestation. | | | | |