Mental Illness 2012; volume 4:e3 Treatment of a woman with with emetophobia, the avoidance response must be very distressing and have a significant Correspondence: Ad de Jongh, Department of emetophobia: a trauma focused impact on the person’s life. As a result, emeto - Behavioral Sciences, Academic Centre for approach phobics have a tendency to avoid a wide array Dentistry Amsterdam, Louwesweg 1, 1066 EA of situations or activities that they believe Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Ad de Jongh might increase the risk of vomiting. For exam - E-mail:
[email protected] Department of Behavioral Sciences, ple, they may avoid crowded places from which they fear they cannot quickly escape in case of Key words: specific phobia, vomiting phobia, ACTA, University of Amsterdam and emetophobia, EMDR. nausea or vomiting, such as shops, boats, air - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, planes, concerts and hospitals. In addition, The Netherlands; Received for publication: 28 August 2011. they may not be able to go on holiday or travel School of Health Sciences, Revision received: 2 December 2011. on public transport, but the avoidance behavior Accepted for publication: 2 December 2011. Salford University, Manchester, UK could also pertain to avoiding adults or chil - dren who may be ill (and, therefore, regarded This work is licensed under a Creative Commons as contagious) or who are at risk of vomiting Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY- NC 3.0). (e.g. people who are drunk). The avoidance Abstract might extend to using public toilets or door ©Copyright