But Lapstone psychologist and unofficial ‘fear’ expert Anthony Gunn has a new phobia to add to the roll of human frailty — fish tanks.

Proving that fear doesn’t have to bear sharp teeth or venomous fangs, this is just one of the more unusual conditions he has encountered in his professional career.

It’s a path that took an unexpected turn in 2006 when Anthony interviewed 100 well-known Australians for a book about how people at the top of their fields manage when they get scared.

‘Fear is Power’ struck a chord with the public and saw the Blue Mountains local in demand for his expertise on all things scary.

Buoyed by that success, Anthony unleashed a new book this year which aims to impart his fear-management message in bite-sized chunks.

‘Walking Tall: Overcoming life’s little challenges’ includes 100 suggestions as simple as ‘accept compliments’ to the more surprising ‘chocolate can help fear’. Unlike a lot of books in the self-help category, it has its foundations firmly in the science of Anthony’s professional psychology career.

And as befits a man specialising in fear and phobias, Anthony isn’t without his own scary stories. As a teenager he underwent an emergency operation without anaesthetic for a collapsed lung and was hospitalised for six weeks while on a student exchange program in Honduras.

As an adult, he said most of his fears centre on his children and what the world has in store for them.

Although Anthony continues his day job as a psychologist working from Blaxland and Glenmore Park, he will release another book to help people out of their comfort zones in 2009. With the attention-grabbing title ‘How to fix your phobia in 90 minutes’, it should ensure Anthony’s anti-fear campaign gathers even more followers.