DEFINITION:
The term “acrophobia” (also known as “hypsophobia”) refers to a type of anxiety disorder characterized by an extreme and irrational fear of heights.
ETYMOLOGY:
The term “acrophobia” was introduced into the medical literature by the Italian physician Andrea Verga (1811–1895) in an article published in 1885.
The term is first attested in English seven years later, in the Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, edited by the English physician Daniel Hack Tuke, published in 1892.
“Acrophobia” is a New Latin word—a word coined in modern times by combining lexical units from Classical Latin and ancient Greek—that is composed of the following two elements:
(1) The prefix “acro,-“ which derives from the Greek adjective akros, meaning “at the extreme point” or “on top,” and the related noun, akron, meaning a “high place”; and
(2) The noun “phobia,” which derives, via the Late Latin word phobia, from the Greek word phobos, meaning “fear.” (For more details, see the Glossary entry, agoraphobia.)
DISCUSSION:
Acrophobia should not be confused with an inborn (or “non-associative”), evolutionarily adaptive apprehension regarding high places—which is to say, a rational or justified fear of a potentially life-threatening situation.
Thus, if a patient experienced mild to moderate anxiety when approaching a high ledge while hiking, that would be a rational reaction to a potentially life-threatening situation, and a diagnosis of “acrophobia” would be inappropriate.
On the other hand, if a patient experienced acute anxiety in a well-protected height from which falling would be difficult or impossible, then a diagnosis of “acrophobia” might be appropriate.
Symptoms of acrophobia may vary, from fixed thoughts about anxiety-inducing high places, to agitation, sweaty palms, and vertigo when the patient is really present in a high place, to panic attacks so severe that the patient may be unable to descend safely on his own.
Between two and five percent of the general population suffers from acrophobia, while twice as many women are affected as men.