[medical citation needed]Ailurophobia is a type of specific phobia: the persistent, irrational fear of cats. The name comes from the Greek αἴλουρος (ailouros), 'cat' and φόβος (phóbos), 'fear'. Other names include felinophobia, elurophobia, and cat phobia.
One strongly motivated patient was able to recover by slowly becoming accustomed to cat fur, under therapist supervision, by first touching varying types of velvet, then becoming accustomed to a toy kitten, and finally a live kitten which the patient subsequently adopted. As the kitten grew, she also became less afraid of full-grown cats.
In the 1965 animated television special A Charlie Brown Christmas, the character Lucy lists a number of phobias to Charlie Brown and incorrectly states, "If you're afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia." The word-forming element "-phasia" is a scientific Greek suffix used to form the names of disorders and phenomena relating to words and speech, such as cryptophasia, aphasia, dysphasia, and schizophasia.
In the 1969 horror film, Eye of the Cat, where the protagonist planning the murder of an elderly woman has a fear of cats.
In the 1988 anime City Hunter 2, the character Umibozu has a fear of cats.
In the 1989 anime Ranma 1/2 the main character Ranma Saotome has a fear of cats.
In the movie series The Mummy, the main antagonist Imhotep has a fear of cats, since he is a living corpse and cats have associations as guardians of the underworld in Egyptian mythology.
In the 2016 anime High School Fleet the character Mashiro Munetani has a fear of cats.
In the 2017 anime Nyanko Days, the character Arashi Iketani has a fear of cats.
The title character in the comic strip Big Nate has ailurophobia.
The character Robbie Jackson, in the BBC soap opera EastEnders has the condition.
Impractical Joker Sal Vulcano has ailurophobia.
Xiumin of musical group Exo developed ailurophobia in his childhood due to being attacked by a cat. He apparently overcame his fear at some point in his mid 20s, as he's had a pet cat since at least December 2016 and stated cats as his favorite animal in the seventh volume of the Exo-L Japan Official Book, which was released February 2018.
^ London, Louis S. (January 1952). "Ailurophobia and ornithophobia: Cat phobia and bird phobia". The Psychiatric Quarterly. 26 (1–4): 365–371. doi:10.1007/BF01568473. PMID 14949213.
^ a b c Szasz, Thomas. A lexicon of lunacy: metaphoric malady, moral responsibility, and psychiatry. p. 68.
^ a b Freeman, H. L.; D. C. Kendrick (August 1960). "A case of cat phobia. Treatment by a method derived from experimental psychology". BMJ. 2 (5197): 497–502. PMC 2097085. PMID 13824737.
^ Schulz, Charles. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (PDF). Ashley River Creative Arts Elementary School. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
^ See -phasia at Wiktionary.
Crawford, Nelson Antrim (1934). "Cats Holy and Profane". Psychoanalytic Review. 21: 168–179. Retrieved 9 April 2009.