中文简介：

你是否一看到蜘蛛就会感到恐惧，或者当手机放错地方时，就会感到莫名的恐惧？你的购书习惯是否近乎于藏书癖？

恐惧症和狂躁症是矛盾、多重且亲密无间的，但又被我们生活的时代所铸就。这是焦虑症最常见的形式，但很少得到正式的诊断。畅销书作者Kate Summerscale巧妙地追踪了过去和现在、心理和社会、个人和政治之间的联系，带你深入了解这本内容丰富、令人惊讶和引人入胜的汇编（A-Z），发现恐惧症是如何形成的。

英文简介：

Do you recoil in arachnophobic horror at the sight of a spider - or twitch with nomophobia when you misplace your mobile phone? Do your book-buying habits verge on bibliomania?

Our phobias and manias are contradictory and multiple: intimate, yet forged by the times we live in - the commonest form of anxiety disorder, but rarely given a formal diagnosis. Plunge into this rich, surprising and fascinating A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political.