[1] The term ichthyophobia comes from the Greek ἰχθῦς - ichthus, meaning "fish"[2] and φόβος - phobos, "fear".

American psychologist John B. Watson, a renowned name in behaviorism, describes an example, quoted in many books in psychology, of conditioned fear of a goldfish in an infant and a way of unconditioning of the fear by what is now called graduated exposure therapy:[6] Try another method.

No amount of watching a fearless child play with these harmless animals will remove the fear from the toddler.

The old fear has been driven out by training, unconditioning has taken place, and this unconditioning is permanent.In contrast, radical exposure therapy was used successfully to cure a man with a "life affecting" fish phobia on the 2007 documentary series, The Panic Room.

The Journal of the American Medical Association have published a research paper[11] addressing the fears of eating fish[12] among those who are concerned about contaminants, such as mercury, becoming accumulated in their food.