November 1st, 2005

PHOBIA

Fear is a normal part of our survival mechanism and part of the dichotomy of being human.

Unlike animals, we are aware of being alive and
therefore fear death. Of all our fears, it is the most rational, as it protects us from placing ourselves in danger and, if we are depressive, it ensures we will not find it easy to contemplate suicide. It only becomes a phobia if we allow it to prevent us from living a normal life.

In a similar way, fear of heights is only irrational if we allow it to disable us from doing normal things like climbing stairs and looking over balconies. We may still feel uncomfortable, but we can control ourselves. We are not in a state of abject terror.

Phobia is excessive fear, amounting to an obsession that prevents us enjoying being alive. It is often not really a fear of death, or heights, or whatever we think terrifies us, at all. We are concealing some other, less rational fear from ourselves by dressing it up as a more reasonable emotion.

The body responds chemically to threatening situations by producing hormones that close down unneccessary functions such as digestion, rational thought etc, leaving all systems clear for the maximum efficiency of the primitive survival response: Flight or fight. We are ready to act without stopping to think. We are ready to fight or to run away. Both are efficient survival stratagems. Both are appropriate in some situations.

In our society, often neither are possible, but our system remains in this state of peak arousal until the chemicals (adrenalin and other exciters) are used up. So our state of maximum fear can only last about 30 minutes before it subsides, which would have given us time to concentrate on combatting any threat or running away. But they will be replenished again in about fifteen minutes to enable us to rest, then respond again to threat.

We can be assured that the panic state is an inbuilt, efficient, if sometimes inappropriate, survival response to anything we perceive as threatening and that it cannot last at high intensity for more than 30 minutes at a time.

The danger is, that if we are constantly aroused and constantly awash with these hormones, they will damage our health by their effect on our other systems. This is one of the ways we can get chronic digestive problems, raised blood pressure, sexual dysfunction and poor concentration.

Phobias are most common in people who have time and leisure to consider their situation rather than simply struggling to survive, so they are a sign that the sufferrer is already doing better than 75% of the world population.

My advice to anyone fighting a phobia is to stay on any prescribed medication and consult your practioner about finding yourself, if possible, a counsellor/therapist who is close enough to visit while you work on lessening your fear.

If you cannot visit a therapist, then find something else that frightens you a little and practice the following exercise with something you can face easily alone.

This is a website visitor's analysis of a phobia which he has learned to control. You may find it helpful.

"Phobia's are always irrational. A fear of heights or man-eating tigers might seem reasonable, but it's not the normal and sensible fear of death or injury. It's more like part of the brain is wired up wrong.

"In fact it's not a 'hardware' problem really. It is possible to train yourself out of a phobia at least to a point.

"There is a really good book that describes the method. "Living with Fear" by Professor Isaac Marks MD, but I remember the principle well enough and it goes like this:

"1. Assuming you are in reasonable health then fear alone can't kill you. (But it can make you wish it would).

"2. Fear is partly psychological, but the physical part can only go on so long before your body runs out of various chemicals and hormones. It's impossible to feel the blind panic that all phobia sufferers know all too well for more then say 30 minutes at a time.

"3. Most people who are phobic remove the cause before they reach the limit of fear so are unaware that it can end.

"The treatment for all phobias is much the same, but suppose we take insects as an example. That's a really common one for some reason.

"A true phobic would have trouble even looking at a picture of an insect and touching a color plate of one would make them twitch.

"So you begin by staring at a picture and letting the panic grow. That's unpleasant to say the least, but no matter how bad it seems, in 30 mins or so it will end. The chemicals run out and the panic subsides. It will return as your body recovers, but not right now.

"You do this daily and knowing it will end after a time makes it easier and easier to do until you find the pictures boring and they no longer inspire panic.

"You are then ready for the next stage, which varies, but might involve holding a jar with an insect safely inside. Again the panic is triggered, but again it ends after 30 minutes and your mind rapidly learns to expect that and it gets easier.

"It takes surprisingly few steps to bring a phobia under control, but I got to the point where I could let a spider weave a web between my fingers. That
won't impress most people, but anyone with that phobia is probably retching about now.

"This will work with any phobia and you can imagine setting up a small room or even a large cardboard box for someone who has claustrophobia. Again that
might sound silly, but if you can't visit relatives because you can't get into a small car then it's a serious disability.

"The bad news is it doesn't cure it totally. It just teaches you to deal with it. The improvement though is tremendous once you realise you CAN deal with
it. "

And this is where you will begin to benefit. Once you have learned the technique with things that only worry you a little, you can go on to use it for the phobia, looking at pictures and letting yourself think about the most terrifying thing until the fear drains away, as it will. This is best done with someone else silently present. Try to resist the temptation to turn to them for comfort or reassurance until you have endured the worst and are over the most unbearable part. As the young man said, it is surprising how quickly you can get to this stage. The phobia is recognised as simply an irrational level of a normal anxiety.

But then you may find yourself tearful and unsure as you start to face the real cause of your fear and look at the problems you were able to ignore because of the phobia.

Take the example of the lady who was too claustrophobic to get into a car. She discovered that she really did not want to face her brother's new bride, who knew things about her that she had managed to keep a secret from the rest of the family.

Coming back to the fear of death - it is partly a fascination with death, resisted by your instinct to survive, often caused by a fear of life, an excuse to avoid all the decisions, risks and responsibiities associated with knowing and admitting who you are and working towards the achievement of the things you really want.

I hope this helps you to relax a little and start thinking about enjoying life rather than simply enduring it.

"The turning point in the process of growing up is
when you discover the core of strength within you
that survives all hurt. --Max Lerner "