For adults and parents
Emetophobia: fear of vomiting
Emetophobia is an intense fear of vomiting, or of seeing or hearing someone else be sick. It is classed as a specific phobia, but it rarely stays in one place, because being sick could in principle happen anywhere and at any time.
What emetophobia is
Most people dislike being sick, but people with emetophobia organise large parts of their life around making sure it never happens to them and that they never see it happen to anyone else. Some are most afraid of being sick themselves, often in public, and others of seeing someone else vomit, so that a child being sick on a bus can set off panic that lasts for days. Many have not been sick for years because they avoid it so carefully, which also means the fear never gets checked. It often starts in childhood, sometimes after a memorable episode of being sick and sometimes with no clear starting point, and among people who seek treatment it is far more common in women and girls.
How far the avoidance reaches
Because nausea and vomiting can come from so many places, the avoidance spreads further than in most phobias, usually into several of the following areas at once.
- Food. Avoiding chicken, seafood, eggs and anything near its date, overcooking meat, and eating very little before going out.
- Eating out and alcohol. Only eating where you know the kitchen, not drinking, and leaving parties early in case someone else drinks too much.
- Travel. Avoiding boats, coaches and flights, or taking travel sickness tablets every time.
- Illness in others. Keeping away from anyone unwell and checking group chats for news of a stomach bug.
- Children and pregnancy. Finding it very hard to care for your own child when they are sick, or ruling out pregnancy because of morning sickness.
- Work and study. Turning down jobs in schools or healthcare, and missing school when classmates are ill.
The habits that keep the fear going
Around the avoidance sits a set of smaller habits that feel protective, such as carrying mints, anti-nausea tablets or a bag, sitting near the exit or the toilet, using hand sanitiser many times a day, checking the stomach for any change, and asking a partner whether food smells right. Each brings relief and teaches the brain that without it you would have been sick. Nausea is also a common symptom of anxiety, so fear of being sick produces the feeling of being about to be sick, which seems to confirm the danger, even though many people with emetophobia feel nauseous most days and are sick very rarely.
Phobia, OCD, health anxiety or ARFID?
I treat emetophobia as a specific phobia, and it overlaps with several other problems. Repeated washing to avoid stomach bugs and checking food dates over and over look like contamination OCD. Constant monitoring of the stomach and reading every twinge as the start of vomiting look like health anxiety. When the list of safe foods narrows until weight or growth are affected, it overlaps with ARFID, and if you or your child have lost weight, please see your GP so that weight and blood tests can be checked alongside the psychological work. Many people have more than one of these, and working out which pattern is doing most at the start decides what we work on first.
How I treat emetophobia
Treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy in which you gradually approach what you have been avoiding, in small steps planned together in advance. We list everything first and you choose where to start. Each step is a stretch but manageable, it becomes easier with practice, and nothing is sprung on you.
Early steps are often saying and writing words linked to vomiting, then looking at cartoons, photographs and videos of people being sick, first without sound and then with it. Because nausea is the signal people fear most, we then bring it on in mild, controlled ways, for example by spinning on an office chair or reading as a passenger in a moving car, and you stay with the feeling without the usual protective habits, learning that nausea rises and falls and rarely leads to vomiting. Later steps take the work into ordinary life, such as eating a food you have avoided, eating at a restaurant you have not checked, travelling on a coach, and leaving the mints and over-the-counter travel tablets at home. Anything a doctor has prescribed is different, and stays exactly as prescribed unless your doctor says otherwise.
When it is your child
Emetophobia is one of the most common phobias in children referred for help. Parents usually notice it through repeated questions such as “will I be sick?”, refusal to go to school when a bug is going round, and a shrinking list of foods. Families understandably adapt by checking food, cancelling trips and answering the questions, so with younger children much of the work is with parents, reducing those adaptations gradually as described on the page on anxiety in children, while treatment with teenagers looks much more like adult treatment.
What the research says, and what is not known
In a study of 1,017 people treated for a specific phobia at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust over five years, fear of vomiting accounted for 17.8 per cent of adult phobias and 23.4 per cent of children’s phobias, making it the most common specific phobia among those who came for treatment. Among adults with it, women outnumbered men by about nine to one (Veale, Beeson and Papageorgiou, 2025). How common it is in the general population is less clear (Keyes, Gilpin and Veale, 2018). The first randomised trial of CBT for emetophobia included 24 people, and after 12 sessions, 50 per cent of those treated showed clinically significant change, compared with 16 per cent of those on a waiting list (Riddle-Walker and colleagues, 2016). That trial was small and left half of those treated without clinically significant change, so there is room to improve treatment, and there is very little research on children.
Sources
- Veale, D., Beeson, C., & Papageorgiou, A. (2025). Frequency of and sex distribution in specific phobia subtypes in a treatment-seeking sample. BJPsych Open, 11(5), e164. cambridge.org (opens in a new tab)
- Riddle-Walker, L., Veale, D., Chapman, C., Ogle, F., Rosko, D., Najmi, S., Walker, L. M., Maceachern, P., & Hicks, T. (2016). Cognitive behaviour therapy for specific phobia of vomiting (emetophobia): a pilot randomized controlled trial. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 43, 14-22. sciencedirect.com (opens in a new tab)
- Keyes, A., Gilpin, H. R., & Veale, D. (2018). Phenomenology, epidemiology, co-morbidity and treatment of a specific phobia of vomiting: a systematic review of an understudied disorder. Clinical Psychology Review, 60, 15-31. sciencedirect.com (opens in a new tab)
Common questions
Will I have to be sick as part of treatment?
No. I do not ask anyone to make themselves sick. Treatment works by gradually approaching the things you avoid and dropping the habits you use to feel safer, so that you learn you can cope with nausea, reminders of vomiting and not knowing whether you will be sick. Some later steps bring on mild nausea on purpose, for example by spinning on a chair, and those are agreed with you in advance.
I want children but I am terrified of morning sickness. Can treatment help with that?
Fear of morning sickness leads some people with emetophobia to delay or rule out pregnancy. The decision about having children stays with you, and treatment aims to reduce the fear enough that you can make it on the basis of what you want rather than on avoiding nausea. The steps can be adapted if you are already pregnant.
My child is terrified of being sick. What can I do before treatment starts?
Notice how much of family life has already changed around the fear, such as the foods you check, the outings you cancel and the questions you answer about whether they will be sick. You do not need to stop all of it at once, and doing so without a plan tends to cause distress. Keep answering kindly but more briefly, avoid adding new rules, and book a GP appointment if eating has narrowed or weight has dropped.
Free 20-minute call
Not sure whether this is the right fit?
Start with a free 20-minute call. We talk through what is going on, I answer any questions you have, and I tell you whether I think I can help. If I cannot, I will try to point you to someone who can. The call is free and there is no obligation to book.
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