Content

• Steps
• Advice
• Warning

Reports show that almost a quarter of the US population is extremely afraid of an animal. Specifically, cats are often identified as animals that many people are extremely afraid of. Some people may wonder how someone can be afraid of cats, but many believe that there is an extreme, even irrational, fear of fearing cats. Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition or DSM-V for short) does not specify a name for phobia. The cat, this handbook really shows that many people are most likely to experience "Specific Phobia Syndrome," which is fear of things, phenomena, and situations that are somewhat specific, including cat terror. So, if you have an obsessive fear of cats, then you are not alone.

Steps

Part 1 of 3: Reduce susceptibility to pictures and videos of cats

1. 

   
   
   Find many pictures of cats online. Make sure you save each found image to your computer. Try to find cats of different sizes, colors, coat styles, and more. different. Also, be sure to look for some close-up pictures as well as pictures depicting your cat's daily routines like walking, eating, and playing with people.
   • Do not limit the search to images of cats only online. You can also find many similar images in magazines and flyers.

2. 

   
   
   Select an image and print it out, giving priority to a picture with a nice color. Look at the picture and determine how much fear you have. Do this by determining how much fear you experience on a scale of 1 to 10. While the number 1 means not fear, the number 10 is extremely afraid.

3. 

   
   
   Look at the picture of the cat for a few minutes a day. When you do, try to keep yourself calm. Besides, try to keep yourself from looking away. If you find yourself looking away, make sure you focus again on the picture as soon as you realize it. Continue to try every day until you only feel a little scared by the picture.
   • Determine how long you will be looking at your photos each day. 10 to 15 minutes is probably a good time to practice this activity every day.
   • If you find yourself feeling scared, try taking a deep breath to calm yourself down. Sit in a chair that can support your back. Inhale to let the air flow from your stomach to your chest. Count to 4 as you slowly inhale. Then exhale to feel the air flowing from your chest out of your body. Count the number to 7 as you exhale. Repeat this process if necessary. Try this relaxation technique when you look at the cat image.
   • After a few days of doing this exercise, the fear you experience should subside. Make sure to always note your fear level between 1 and 10. Remember, the goal is to be # 1 or 2 above the rating.

4. 

   Print out the remaining cat images that have been saved on your computer. Use these images to create a collage by pasting them all onto one billboard. When you no longer experience the fear of looking at pictures of a cat, now is the time to continue looking at pictures of many cats. This will help you slowly build your confidence.Surely you will spend a few minutes each day actively looking at the collage. Continue until the images no longer scare you.
   • You are slowly increasing your self-discovery by starting with an image of a cat and moving forward towards an image of multiple cats. The ultimate goal is to reduce your sensitivity when talking about cats. However, if you start off with more than one cat, this can be overwhelming, causing you to give up before it works. Hence, it is important to start with being in your processor range.
   • You may want to hang your collage where you see it often. This will help speed up the process of reducing the sensitivity more quickly. However, it is advisable to continue to set aside 10-15 minutes for this activity.
   • Remember, the goal is to reach a number 1 or 2 above your fear rating when looking at a cat collage.

5. 

   Watch a cat video. Look for some short cat videos on the YouTube channel that you are comfortable watching, and keep watching them over the course of a few days. It can be frustrating and frightening at first, but keep watching the videos until they no longer frighten you.
   • Watching videos is a great way to prepare yourself for the transition from looking at your cat's image to actually interacting with them.
   • It's a good idea to have your friends preview the videos on your YouTube channel before you watch them. This will help avoid some random videos of dangerous cats that make your fears about cats worse.
   • Continue to monitor your fear rating. Once you reach a number 1 or 2 above your rating, you can move on to contact with the cat.
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Part 2 of 3: Interacting with cats

1. 

   Call a cat friend and talk to them about your fears. Explain to them that you want to learn how to be more comfortable when the cat is around and that you need their help. Ask them if you can stop by for the next few weeks every day to get acquainted with the cat.
   • Going to your friend's house every day can be difficult, but it's important to be in contact with your cat as often as possible. Schedule a time and commit to it. As you gradually put yourself into what you fear, your body will adjust appropriately and ultimately stop the release of stress hormones. Therefore, the more time you spend with the cat, the faster you will let go of your fear of the cat.
   • Make sure to choose someone you have a friendly, lovable cat. They can clearly know if their pets are suitable for this activity. However, it's a good idea to ask them if this cat is comfortable before you start visiting.

2. 

   Observe the cat from a distance. The first time you interact with the cat, make sure it happens at a comfortable distance. Ask your friend to keep the cat in another room where you can see it, but it can't touch you directly. You can also ask your friend to hold the cat while they are standing in the room across from you. Stay at their home for about 10-15 minutes and ask for permission to leave. Continue doing this until you no longer feel any anxiety or fear.

3. 

   Sit near the cat. Using a pet bag is a great way to get started. Ask your friend to put the cat in the pet bag and leave it with you. 70 cm or 90 cm from you is a reasonable distance. Maintain the same distance from the cat for 10-15 minutes and then leave. Continue the exercise until you no longer feel fear.

4. 

   Ask the friend to sit near you while they hold the cat in their lap. This will keep you close to a free cat, but since the friend is holding it, it is better under control. Sit like this for 10-15 minutes and then leave. Continue practicing until you don't experience any more fear.
   • Remember, you don't have to touch the cat at this point. The goal is to stay close to the pet so you can get used to being around a cat that is not in the pet bag.
   • While this will likely cause some inconvenience, if you start to feel overwhelmed at some point, it's okay to stop.
   • Always try to end successfully. If you feel overwhelmed and decide to give up, try asking your friend to put the cat back in the animal bag and ask if they can leave for a while. Try to wait and leave until you no longer feel the pressure. This can help reduce anxiety without increasing your feelings of fear.

5. 

   Pet the cat. Let yourself be in direct contact with the cat. Spend a few seconds starting to touch the cat and gradually improving your abilities. Make sure to only touch the cat in certain places that won't make it uncomfortable. Dr. Marty Becker recommends that there are only a few places your cat likes to be petted and one that you should avoid:
   • Cats love to be rubbed on the lower part of the chin where the jawbone and skull connect. The ears and cheeks underneath the hard coat can also be comfortable areas for most cats.
   • Cats also enjoy being gently petted down the back with moderate force when you reach the tailbone.
   • Avoid touching the cat's belly. Although dogs don't like to be touched by their stomach, cats feel hurt and may react uncomfortably to the gesture.

6. 

   Hold the cat in your lap. After you are comfortable petting the cat, let it sit on you. Leave it on your lap for a few seconds or minutes (as long as you feel comfortable), and then ask a friend to take it somewhere else. When you can comfortably hold the cat without fear, you are overcoming your fear of the cat.

7. 

   Get close to your cat often. This is very important because the fear may recur if you do not continue to practice. Therefore, it is important that you continue to be with the cat as often as possible so that your fear does not have a chance to return. Try to visit a home that has cats on a regular basis so that you can feel comfortable around them.
   • Visiting a pet store at a time when you have not had the chance to interact with your cat is also ideal. This is especially great if the cat friend is out of town.
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Part 3 of 3: Rearranging thoughts

1. 

   Realize that your fear of haunting cats is at risk of being exacerbated by futile thinking. Most people who are afraid of cats are already aware that cats are also quite harmless. However, they have a fear response in their brains that makes them out of control at the moment.
   • Obsessive fear is usually accumulated behavior. A person may have had a bad experience with cats, subconsciously begin to associate cats with many negative things like illness, or they have "accumulated" fears of cats from observing their fear response. parents when cats were around when they were children.
   • A lot of brain areas are involved in phobia. Therefore, it takes time to retrain your brain to think and react differently to the cat.

2. 

   Make a list of many of the negative and negative thoughts you experience around your cat. Once you can identify these unhelpful thoughts, you can begin to evaluate them. You will be able to realize that almost every thought belongs to one (or more) of three cognitive distortions:
   • Predicting the future is when a person thinks they know the outcome of an event and has no real evidence to support the prediction. For example, you might think “This cat is going to scratch my skin” even if you haven't had any interactions with that cat before.
   • Over-generalization is when one looks at a certain situation and generalizes it to all situations. For example, you might think, "Your friend's cat used to scratch me 2 years ago so all cats are hateful."
   • Exacerbating the problem is when you anticipate an impending negative outcome and believe that when it does, there will be a tragic end. Exacerbating the problem is when you think a situation is about to lead to the worst tragedy. For example, you might think, "If the cat scratches me, I will get infected and die."

3. 

   Replace negative thoughts with more productive ones. You can create an alternative statement to combat negative thoughts.In doing so, you are actually retraining your subconscious to release the perversion of perceptions that have no value and replace them with more positive beliefs.
   • Focusing on replacing negative thoughts with positive statements helps you emphasize more neutral or optimistic results. For example, you could replace the thought "This cat is going to scratch me" with the phrase "Many people interact with cats every day and never scratch or scratch their skin".
   • You can even start out by using more less negative sentences than you actually have. For example, you could replace the thought “If the cat scratches me, I will get infected and die” with the less negative, “The worst that could happen is the cat scratches me and runs away. . I've had my skin scratched before and this is not serious. I will not run the risk of infection ”. In the end, you can replace the negative thought with something even more positive.
   • Try to use this method whenever negative thoughts arise. As a result, you will begin to think more positively about the cat.
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Advice

• The first time you begin physical contact with the cat, try to practice every day or as often as possible. Create a schedule and commit to it.
• The more you interact with the cat, the faster you will overcome your fear. With repeated exposure, you will begin to realize that the worst possible scenario will not actually happen. But when tragedy strikes, fear comes into play.
• Try to find the specific cause of your fear. Perhaps not just because the cat itself is causing the fear, but it is more likely that you are thinking about what will happen when the cat is present. Are you afraid your cat will scratch you, attack, bite, or otherwise harm you? When you realize it, it will be easier to change your negative thoughts and beliefs.
• When you begin to touch the cat, try to avoid contact with the cat during controlled interactions at your friend's house. This will help avoid many unexpected situations that can pose a risk.
• If you don't have a friend who knows how to keep cats, an alternative is to visit a pet store or some other location to look for a cat.
• If your fear of cats is severe, you may want to start increasing the amount of time a little bit and keep going for 10 or 15 minutes per visit. You might also consider starting to contact a kitten and move on to an adult cat. Chances are that a kitten will make you less scared.
• Reading about cats can also help you overcome your fears. This is probably most helpful during your hypersensitivity phase during your practice with cat imagery.
• Find out in advance exactly what you plan to do before each cat visit. This way, your fear of the unknown runs less of a risk of stopping you from taking action.
• Overcoming fears and phobias takes time, so don't be too hard on yourself if you can't get over them as quickly as you think. Let yourself get through the process, efficiently use the time you need.

Warning

• Don't allow yourself to become extremely overwhelmed during this process. While it is likely that you will experience some discomfort, if you feel pressured, stop what you are doing. Because you want the results to be successful, try going back to the last step you took without worrying you. For example, if you are overwhelmed by caring for your cat, you can try returning the cat to its owner.
• Make sure you go through the process in a safe place. The cat should be owned by a friend or trusted organization that knows the cat well and can demonstrate that it is in good health and well-being.
• If your fears of cats are becoming extremely severe, you might consider discussing your phobia with your doctor. Sometimes anti-anxiety medications can help.