Believe it or not, fear of fear itself is a phobia. Phobophobia is defined as an abnormal fear of phobias or of developing one. The risk of acquiring phobophobia is greater to people already suffering from a certain phobia. If you went through intense phobic reactions towards the object of an established fear, you may eventually dread confronting and experiencing the same morbid response again, thus leading to phobophobia.

It is also possible for people not having any past phobias at all to have a fear of acquiring it. What makes phobophobia one of the strangest phobias is that the sufferer does not seem to respond to any external stimuli but to the internal sentiment he or she has.