The way this documentary locks people in rooms with their greatest terror until they’re gibbering wrecks is like an awful reality show. Should we really be gawping at them?

What are you irrationally scared of? What is the thing that, if you see it, means there is likely to be a you-shaped hole in the nearest wall as you flee in panic? For me, it is stray hairs – anywhere, though in the bath or shower is worst. I could throw up just thinking about it. I would also kill a clown as soon as look at one, but I don’t consider that a phobia. It is a well-grounded, sensible protective instinct because clowns are clearly wrong on every level.

We are all, I suspect, scared of, repulsed by, or rendered incoherent with disgust about something that others approach with perfect equanimity. However sensible you are, however sanguine and reasonable, it seems a part of every human brain cannot be content without sabotaging your smooth passage through life. The Fear Clinic: Face Your Phobia, a series somewhere between a documentary and a reality show, is set in a facility in Amsterdam that treats phobics of all stripes with a revolutionary treatment that boasts a 90% success rate. I bet it’s the coulrophobics who resist. Because we don’t want to die!