你會害怕打電話嗎? 真的有一種病叫電話恐懼症

Does hearing the phone ring make you panic? Does the thought of making a call give you cold sweats?

聽到電話鈴聲響起的時候，你有沒有感到很恐慌？一想到要給別人打電話，你是不是就會冒出一身冷汗？

We're rarely separated from our mobile phones these days, but many people still suffer from a true, deep fear of making a phone call.

如今，我們和手機形影不離，但是很多人依然飽受真實而又嚴重的電話恐懼的折磨。

Recognised as an offshoot of social anxiety disorder, telephobia afflicts people across countries and generations.

打電話恐懼症可以算是社交恐懼症的一個分支，在很多國家，各個年齡段的人都深受其困擾。

Those who suffer from telephobia might be comfortable delivering a talk in a room full of strangers or might send dozens of text messages a day, but get shivers when they need to talk on the phone.

對患有打電話恐懼症的人而言，他們可以在一間滿是陌生人的屋子裏侃侃而談，也可以在一天中發出數十條短信，但一需要給別人打電話時，他們就會渾身顫慄。

"For a lot of people, getting on the phone is a particularly complex interaction," says Jill Isenstadt, vice president of coaching for Joyable, which offers online therapy."

吉爾·艾森施塔特是Joyable機構培訓部副總裁，這家公司提供針對打電話焦慮症的網上在線療法。他表示：“對很多人而言，打電話是一種極爲複雜的人際互動方式。”

"You have to think of things on the fly and you have to respond to what someone is saying to you."

“在打電話的過程中，你的大腦必須飛速地運轉，這樣才能很好地回應對方的話”。

Technologies that enable communication without directly speaking to someone, have made it easier to mask the problem of telephobia.

現代技術的發展使非面對面交流成爲可能，但也掩蓋了打電話焦慮症問題的存在。

As a result, the problem has become harder to spot, and there's no hard data on the prevalence of telephobia.

因此，人們越來越難以察覺這一問題，有關打電話焦慮症涉及人羣的硬數據也無從查找。

Ultimately, the fear of talking on the phone can have disastrous results for productivity or job mobility.

最終，通電話的恐懼會對生產力和就業流動性造成毀滅性的後果。

Telephobia has been around well before the advent of smartphones. George Dudley and Shannon Goodson wrote The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance in 1986.

在手機出現以前，電話恐懼症就已經很普遍了。1986年，喬治·達德利和香農·古德森就撰寫過一本名爲《排斥電話銷售心理學》的書籍。

In his 1929 autobiography, British poet and writer Robert Graves writes about developing a deep fear of using the telephone after suffering an injury while serving in the First World War.

1929年，英國詩人兼作家羅伯特·格雷弗斯在自己的自傳中提到，在一戰中服役時的受傷經歷使他對使用手機產生了深深的恐懼。

In some cultures, people are apprehensive about talking on the phone, says Michael Landers, global director of Culture Crossing, a consultancy which advises groups and individuals working in a global context.

Culture Crossing是一家諮詢公司，爲在全球範圍內工作的團隊和個人提供諮詢，該公司全球總監麥克爾·蘭德斯表示，對某些文化背景的人而言，給別人打電話是一件讓人憂慮的事情。

"In Japan there is a hesitancy regarding talking to someone you don't know — they don't want to offend someone or lose face," says Landers.

蘭德斯說：“在日本，人們不願同不認識的人說話，因爲他們不想冒犯到別人或者因此掉了面子。”

"In Indonesia, where the average person sends about a hundred text messages every day, he says people are just less comfortable making calls."

“在印度尼西亞，每個人平均每天會發送上百條短信，而這僅僅是因爲打電話不太舒服。”

Most therapists use an approach rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy to help patients overcome their fear of the phone. Isenstadt asks patients to identify the anxious thoughts they have about talking on the phone and walks them through worse case scenarios.

大多數理療師會用認知行爲療法來幫助那些患有打電話恐懼症的人，比如艾森施塔特就會要求接受治療者先正視他們在打電話時出現的焦慮情緒，然後再幫助他們應對打電話時會出現的更難以應付的情況。