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Help me to help you. You suffer from porphyrophobia, rhodophobia, xanthophobia and leukophobia. OK, that's not ideal but we can get around it. Look at this list and tell me, which of these jobs could you still do?

Sound engineer. Each of those phobias is a fear of a colour. Porphyrophobia is the fear of the colour purple, its name coming from porphyra, the ancient Greek word for purple, originally referring to a specific dye collected from shellfish. Rhodophobia is the fear of the colour red, xanthophobia is fear of yellow and leukophobia fear of white. If you had just one of these phobias then you might be able to work around it, having all four makes life a little difficult. Fortunately sounds have no colour!

See, we're making progress already. Oh, there's more? You suffer from nebulaphobia, nephophobia, heliophobia and chionophobia? That's quite a list but there's only one of these jobs that you should specifically avoid. Which one?

Meteorologist. Heliophobia severely restricts employment options as it is the fear of the sun, so indoor jobs are a necessity. Nebulaphobia is the fear of fog, chionophobia is fear of the snow and nephophobia, the fear of clouds. Any of these would make getting through the weather forecast tough going on its own, let alone having a combination of all four.

What about the priesthood? Oh, you suffer from ecclesiophobia too? What are you fearful of?

Churches. Other phobias that might cause you a problem as a Christian minister are hagiophobia, which is the fear of saints, and staurophobia, the fear of crosses or the crucifix. Teleophobia is the fear of all religious ceremonies.

Have you thought about becoming a hairdresser? Oh, you suffer from eisoptrophobia do you? Hmmm, well you could still do it, although it might be a little bit tricky. What are you fearful of?

Seeing yourself in a mirror. As well as avoiding mirrors, another phobia that would be problematic is chaetophobia, the fear of hair. Conversely you might have to be careful about cutting too much hair off if you are suffering from peladophobia, the fear of bald people.

Let's narrow down your options a bit further. You say you suffer from arithmophobia and chrometophobia, so can you take a look at this list and tell me which of these careers would NOT be affected by these conditions?

Zookeeper. Arithmophobia is the fear of numbers and chrometophobia the fear of handling money, so a career in retail or the financial sector would be inadvisable. If you also had logophobia, you'd really be stuck as that is the fear of words.

I'm not giving up yet, there are still several paths we can go down. But you tell me that you suffer from mageirocophobia, oenophobia and carnophobia so, of these, where would I be best NOT to send you to work?

In a kitchen. A restaurant would be a pretty lousy workplace for someone who suffers from a fear of cooking (mageirocophobia), a fear of wine (oenophobia) and a fear of meat (carnophobia). You'd hope that a train driver wouldn't have need for wine on the job.

You could always take the tried and tested route of running away with the circus. You can't? Why? Because you have coulrophobia. Of course, silly me. Which of these circus acts could you not perform with?

Clowns. Coulrophobia, which derives its name from the ancient Greek word kolobathristes, meaning "one who walks on stilts", is a surprisingly common phobia. The phobia also accounts for those who are fearful of having their face covered with paint.

They say "never work with children or animals" but we're beginning to run out of options here. What's that you say? You have musophobia, arachnophobia and ornithophobia. So which of these animals can you work with?

Dogs. The fear of dogs is cynophobia (and also the fear of rabies, which in itself is the fear of water). Animals account for a significant proportion of all phobias, if you can think of an animal then there is almost certainly a medically recognised phobia of it. Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders, musophobia is the fear of mice and ornithophobia, the fear of birds.

Anything else I should know about? You have gymnnophobia and opthalmophobia? OK, which of these should I be crossing off your ever-shortening list of potential occupations?

Life model. Gymnophobia is the fear of nudity, which is something that as a telephone engineer you'd hope would never be an issue. Opthalmophobia is the fear of being stared at.

Now I'm getting a bit desperate. I've never failed to find a career for someone but you are making me sweat. So, this is the last of your phobias; acousticophobia. Then I think I have the perfect occupation for you. What is it?

Librarian. Acousticophobia is the fear of noise, so a library would be the ideal place to work. It is also indoors, there are very few birds, little call for nudity, no clowns, no cooking or mirrors. As long as the books are covered with plain brown paper and someone else deals with late return fines then, all in all, it's just about perfect.