Ailurophobia

Ailurophobia is an intense, persistent fear of cats that can cause distress or avoidance. It is classified as a specific phobia.

Specific phobia: An anxiety disorder involving marked fear of a particular object or situation. Ailurophobia is the cat-focused form of this diagnostic category.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: A classification manual published by the American Psychiatric Association for diagnosing mental disorders. Its criteria describe when cat fear meets the diagnosis of specific phobia.
Cynophobia: A specific phobia characterized by an intense fear of dogs. It has the same phobia pattern but a different animal focus.
Black cat: A domestic cat with predominantly black fur, associated with varied cultural beliefs and superstitions. Superstitions about black cats can reinforce fear beyond direct experience.
Classical conditioning: A learning process in which a stimulus comes to trigger a response after being paired with another stimulus. A frightening encounter with a cat can become associated with cats generally.
Cognitive behavioral therapy: A psychological treatment that works on patterns of thinking and behavior linked to distress. It can address threat beliefs and avoidance associated with cats.
Zoophobia: A broad or intense fear of animals, which may involve one or many animal types. Ailurophobia is narrower, focusing specifically on cats.
Cat: A small domesticated carnivorous mammal, Felis catus, commonly kept as a companion animal. The feared animal is also a familiar companion species with varied individual behavior.
Fear conditioning: A form of associative learning in which a previously neutral cue comes to elicit fear after being paired with threat. It can explain how cat-related cues acquire strong alarm responses.
In vivo exposure: Exposure to feared situations or objects in real life rather than through imagination or simulation. For cat phobia, treatment may progress toward safe, direct contact with cats.

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OrnithophobiaCompared with: It is another animal-specific phobia, but its feared animal is a mammal.