Why People have Phobias of Dentists

There are a lot of names for all of the phobias out, some pretty common like arachnophobia (the fear of spiders, and some a little more bizarre like pogonophobia (the fear of beards). Rumour has it that Margaret Thatcher possibly suffered from this condition and as such had all of her male employees' clean shaven. Dentophobia is the irrational fear of the dentist, but is being afraid of the dentist such an irrational fear?


It's been a common running joke for a long time that visiting the dentist is a pretty scary thing. It's been well documented as entertainment for decades from Charlie Chaplin movies to a variety of cartoons and comic strips and in a way couldn't this portrayal have manifested in a lot of children's minds growing up? It's reasonable to assume that if something gets nothing but bad press people will eventually have a very negative view of it.


Of course there are ground to say that in many cases a fear of the dentist isn't so irrational. There are a lot of people who have had bad experiences with the dentist and some people believe that this fear is in most cases less a phobia than a case of post traumatic stress. It's fair to say that visiting the dentist isn't that enjoyable an experience for most people, but if you consider many people have had bad experiences with more serious procedures like route-canals then it becomes even more reasonable. For children, have teeth removed at such a young age must surely be quite traumatic.


Perhaps it's just a resonance from a former time when dentists were less like doctors and more like butchers and their tools were less like, well tools and more like implements of torture. The tools available to a dentist 100 years ago consisted of saws, forceps and somewhat larger drills. Of course fortunately implant dentistry has moved on a fair but since then and there's definitely less to fear from your dentist. You can get teeth replacement treatment quickly and effectively and even the average teeth whitening cost is on the way down.


So the next time you visit the dentist don't fret so much, if you try to stay calm you will probably find that's it's not as bad as you remember. The alternative of not having anyone deal with your teeth sounds much worse!