all age groups and the second most common illness among men older than 25. between 4 percent and 10 percent of all children experience specific phobias during their lives, and social phobias occur in one percent to three percent of children. a swedish study found that females have a higher number of cases per year than males (26.5 percent for females and 12.4 percent for males). among adults, 21.2 percent of women and 10.9 percent of men have a single specific phobia, while multiple phobias occur in 5.4 percent of females and 1.5 percent of males. women are nearly four times as likely as men to have a fear of animals (12.1 percent in women and 3.3 percent in men) — a higher dimorphic than with all specific or generalized phobias or social phobias. social phobias are more common in girls than boys, while situational phobia occurs in 17.4 percent of women and 8.5 percent of men. society and culture terminology main article: list of phobias the word phobia comes from the greek: φόβος (phóbos), meaning "aversion", "fear" or "morbid fear". the regular system for naming specific phobias uses prefixes based on a greek word for the object of the fear, plus the suffix -phobia. benjamin rush's 1786 satyrical text, 'on the different species of phobia', established the term's dictionary sense of specific morbid fears. however, many phobias are irregularly named with latin prefixes, such as apiphobia instead of melissaphobia (fear of bees) or aviphobia instead of ornithophobia (fear of birds). creating these terms is something of a word game. such fears are psychological rather than physiological in origin, and few of these terms are found in medical literature. in ancient greek mythology phobos was the twin brother of deimos (terror). the word phobia may also refer to conditions other than true phobias. for example, the term hydrophobia is an old name for rabies, since an aversion to water is one of that disease's symptoms. a specific phobia to water is called aquaphobia instead. a hydrophobe is a chemical compound that repels water. similarly, photophobia usually refers to a physical complaint (aversion to light due to inflamed eyes or excessively dilated pupils), rather than an irrational fear of light. non-medical, deterrent and political use several terms with the suffix -phobia are used non-clinically to imply irrational fear or hatred. examples include: chemophobia – irrational fear or hatred of chemistry and synthetic chemicals. xenophobia – irrational fear or hatred of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describe nationalistic political beliefs and movements. homophobia – irrational fear or hatred of homosexuality or people who identify or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (lgbt). islamophobia – irrational fear or hatred of islam. hinduphobia – irrational fear or hatred for hindus or hinduism. biphobia – irrational fear or hatred of bisexual people. transphobia – irrational fear or hatred of transgender people. christophobia – irrational fear or hatred of christianity or jesus christ. usually, these kinds of "phobias" are described as fear, dislike, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, discrimination, or hostility towards the object of the "phobia". it is a form of hyperbole. popular culture a number of films and tv shows have portrayed individuals with a variety of phobic disorders. movies benchwarmers – howie goodman (nick swardson) is portrayed as being agoraphobic and heliophobic. television shows monk – adrian monk (tony shalhoub) is a former homicide detective and a consultant for the san francisco police department. he has an extreme case of ocd, and is well known for his various fears and phobias, including (but certainly not limited to) heights, snakes, crowds, glaciers, rodeos, wind, and milk. shameless (american tv series) – sheila jackson (joan cusack) has agoraphobia and mysophobia (fear of germs). research directions before the development of pharmacotherapy, the treatment of phobias and mental health disorders relied solely on therapy such as cbt. although therapy can be incredibly effective for many, it does not always achieve the desired effect. interventional psychiatry is an additional branch in medicine that has expanded treatment options, and further research continues to explore effectiveness and applications. electroconvulsive therapy (ect) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (tms) are two examples of device-based interventions widely utilized. in terms of use in treating phobias and anxiety disorders as a whole, tms is being explored as an augmentation option for those who do not have the desired response to other therapeutic options or side effects from medications. a majority of research has been conducted exploring the use of tms in ptsd and generalized anxiety disorder. a meta‐analysis conducted in 2019 found only two clinical trials for the use of tms in specific phobias, one of which explored anxiety and avoidance rates in individuals with acrophobia. although the study found decreased rates in both anxiety and avoidance after two tms sessions because of the limited number of studies and small sample size, few conclusions can be made. d-cycloserine (dcs), a partial n-methyl-d-aspartate agonist, is an additional investigational approach to augmentation specific phobias that a meta-analysis suggested had better outcomes and less symptom severity when utilized before initiating cbt.