Naval officer with reduced inclination to grasp hot thing (6)
I believe the answer is:
phobia
'thing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'naval officer with reduced inclination to grasp hot' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'hot' could be 'h' and 'h' is located in the answer.
'naval officer' could be 'po' (abbreviation for petty officer) and 'po' is present in the remaining letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for phobia that I've seen before include "Aversion" , "Morbid, irrational fear" , "Irrational fear of something" , "Obsessive and persistent fear of something" , "A lasting abnormal fear or dislike" .)