Fear of Clowns

Coulrophobia is an irrational fear of clowns.

Fear of clowns is a big issue in my world. As a professional clown, I come across this issue more often than I would like. What drives this fear is irrational. More importantly, as a professional clown, I’ve learned that our reaction to this fear can be handled positively or it can be handled poorly, making the clown fear worse.

First, a little bit about the actual fear: there is a belief in our culture that clowns are scary. You can go to the Stephen King character Pennywise as an example. Someone who’s lurking in the dark eager to do something evil. Part of the power of this bad clown example is that it takes the idea of what should be happy, joyful delightful, and it turns it into something evil and scary. It’s an inherent dichotomy. What could be more frightening than something that should be happy but instead is evil? In summer 2016, this clown fear got out of control. There were news stories of people complaining about clowns. It became a meme. The situation peaked as it usually does at Halloween. Eventually in late 2016 clown phobia subsided to its pre-existing level.

Most of my dealings with clowns phobias are in my work as a hospital clown. I’ve been working at the hospital clown since 2000. I began working with the Big Apple Circus in 2000 and have continued to do this work with Humorology Atlanta. During my time as a hospital clown, I have seen patients, family, and staff members who have this fear. I’ve seen some good ways to address this issue. I’ve also witnessed a few easy mistakes and pitfalls in dealing with this. I will discuss some of these mistakes in future posts here in my blog. Then I will move on to what I believe are the best practices and approaches for dealing with coulrophobia.