Many refer to anxiety attack and panic attack as being one and the same but there are some differences. The main difference being the duration of the attack and the intensity.  Whilst anxiety attack symptoms are less hi-stress, they tend to last longer than the power-packed panic symptoms -- which are far more intense. Usually an anxiety attack comes on more gradually than a panic attack which is sudden and without warning.

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Believe it or not Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the name given to a phobia of long words -- sent to haunt the sufferer? This is an example of a specific phobia.  A specific phobia is an anxiety disorder that is based on a certain fear which is irrational, intense and persistent.  These fears are so intense that they can bring on panic and anxiety attack symptoms.

According to a recent newspaper report (The Times, Britain, Jan 08) Phillip Durkin, principal etymologist (the study of sources and development of words) for Oxford English Dictionary, said: “The hippopotomonstro part is clearly someone adding hippopotamus and monstrous.  It doesn’t really follow linguistic rules. It’s a sort of joke.  The label mocks the sufferer”.  You will find many a website with this monstrous word.

In the same article Robert Endelmann, psychologist and patron of the National Phobic Society said that it was not unusual for people to have unusual phobias and in fact phobias may have a deep rooted biological trigger.  For example it would have been useful for our ancestors to be afraid of such things as the dark, snakes or spiders.

Several British psychologists insisted that there is a phobia for almost everything.  Surprisingly Coulrophobia, a phobia of clowns, is particularly common, and not just among children.