Psychological life counselling
By Dipl.-Päd. Jürgen
Bendszus, scientific counsellor and therapist
Reasons for Fear and Overcoming
Fear
|
We have described
the
faces and diverse types of fear.
This page will tell you more about
the causes, background and overcoming of excessive
anxiety and specific fears (phobias).
We take the insights of depth
psychology, psychology of learning and logotherapy
into consideration.
The development of
excessive anxiety in the early years
depth psychology of
fear
The first three years are crucial in
the development of personality and the inclination
towards excessive anxiety. The depth psychologist
Prof. Dr. Verena Kast speaks of the place of
“impressionable situations” in early childhood
in the development of fear. What is meant by that? |
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There is a certain emotional climate in every
new family. Children sense the security, reliability and
caring safety net around them. These emotional experiences
help them in developing their young personalities and in
developing a sense of inner self-confidence and trust. In
contrast, some children can also be neglected. Or perhaps
their parents require them to be too independent and
self-sufficient. These children can be overextended by
demands that they aren’t ready for and this causes them to
have more fears. They are inclined to excessive anxiety.
These insights should be examined more closely. On the one hand,
small children seek protection and security, mostly from the
mother (a desire for symbiosis). On the other hand, the
small egos (identities) want to prove to themselves that they
can affect something on their own, explore and develop their own
abilities and discover the world (the desire to be autonomous).
One example of an impressionable
situation in which anxieties arise: Three-year-old Tim doesn’t
wish his mother to accompany him to the playground anymore as it
is in clear view from the home (the desire to be autonomous).
How will the mother react? Will she fearfully hold the child
back because there is still a very quiet street to cross or will
she accept the child’s wish to be autonomous?
If mothers and fathers are frequently too overprotective
in such critical situations, they keep their children in a state
of helpless dependence and project their own fears and
misgivings onto them. These children will not master difficult
situations as well when confronted with them later on in life
and will often react with fearful helplessness. Children need to
experience the confidence that they themselves carry the ability
to claim their place in the world early on. At the same time,
they need their parents as helpers and assistants for a long
time, especially when they are threatened and under stress, for
example when fighting with others at the playground. However,
the parents must be able to let go gradually. That way the
parents hovering as protectors on the periphery will be
internalised as psychological helpers. Slowly but surely the
outside parental figures will subconsciously be accepted and
represented, step by step, within the child’s inner psyche.
These inner companions are even present when the parents
themselves are not there. As these inner companions give support
and direction later in life, the child will therefore
confidently master unfamiliar situations without a great deal of
anxiety: for example when entering elementary school and
confronting a new group of children. People who don’t possess
these inner companions ("directional giving objects" in
professional terminology) will be especially insecure and
fearful.
Small children whose parents let them be too independent too
early will feel overwhelmed and won’t form these support and
direction giving helpers in their psyches. A void remains in
the emotional centres of their psyches. They will therefore
fearfully cling to others for help when confronted with
difficult situations in life because they don’t possess these
inner support companions. Naturally neglected children also
don’t possess these inner support systems. If parents have too
many troubles of their own, for example frequently dealing with
marital conflicts, or if they themselves are anxious and
insecure, the inner companions that give security and
direction can not be formed in their child’s psyche. These
children will tend to be especially anxious and possess little
self-confidence later.
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Phobias: fear of spiders
Case
Heidi, a six-year-old
girl, ran out of her room crying. She had discovered
a fat spider. Upset, she asked her mother to kill
the spider. The mother was just as upset as Heidi
and squashed the spider with a towel. Heidi calmed
down this afternoon, but, on the evening of the
following day, Heidi wasn’t able to fall asleep. She
lay there watching anxiously as to whether or not a
spider was hiding in the room again. The mother
killed several spiders that Heidi discovered over
the course of the next few weeks.
After three months,
Heidi wouldn’t even go in her room. She had
developed a spider phobia. |
Specific anxieties
are learned – how phobias develop
Many people are scared of spiders
and, from the point of view of behaviourist
researchers, people are born with this fear.
However, it is problematic to be overly fearful
of spiders, which inhibits one’s life.
Did the mother react in an
appropriate manner? What would you have done? Heidi
learned that spiders are dangerous and must be
killed from her mother’s behaviour. The mother only
increased Heidi’s initial fear of spiders through
her own hysteria. Heidi avoided even looking at
spiders after that episode. The spiders remained a
cause of irritation and anxiety for her.
Heidi’s mother could have reacted
differently. She could have stayed calm and put her
hand protectively on Heidi’s head. She could have
demanded that Heidi get a closer look at the spider:
How many arms does the spider have? Are the arms
strong? Stronger than Heidi’s arms? Is a spider
really so dangerous? Heidi would have calmed down.
Heidi’s mother could drawn a picture of the spider
with her. Then perhaps the fear would have been
replaced by curiosity: How do spiders come about?
How long do they live? Ultimately Heidi may have
remained cautious about spiders, but she would not
have developed a phobia. (The reasons leading up to
a phobia of spiders are not always as clear-cut as
in this case). |
Fears can be learned, but they can be unlearned as well. One has
to allow the anxieties to surface and take a close look at what
is causing them. Then the fears will gradually dissipate. This
is also true for threats that come from outside. There are,
however, also threats which come from the depths of one’s own
subconscious psyche that can lead to fear and defensiveness.
Depth-psychology psychotherapy of fear often deals with exactly
these subconscious threats and allows people to become familiar
with their own denied subconscious personality traits.
The fearful “inner child” – the
depth-psychological approach to dealing with anxieties.
Psychologists have discovered that inexplicable anxieties are
often rooted in the unconscious fearful inner child. What is the
inner child? Grown people don’t always behave like adults, but
rather sometimes show some characteristics of their inner
children. For example, they might react angrily, uncontrollably
or spitefully. Behaving childishly, which isn’t suitable for
adults, proves that our inner child is always present for our
whole life – it is the personality that we had as children.
Our inner child influences our feelings and our experiences, as
well as the extent of our fears as adults.
Example from therapeutic practice: A man who
usually did well in daily life, reacted extremely anxiously in
certain situations. When he came in contact with self-confident,
insensitive or inconsiderate people, he wasn’t able to assert
himself. This often made him very anxious and he was annoyed
with himself over his lack of assertiveness and anxiety. In his
therapy sessions he discovered that he often also felt very
helpless as a five-year-old. In difficult situations, when he
had to assert himself in confrontations with others, he found
little comfort or assistance from his parents. Therefore, when
he found himself in similar difficult situations as an adult in
which he was expected to assert himself, his inner child was
wide awake and alive again and he reacted helplessly and
anxiously. He met this inner child as a man in his therapy
sessions. Before that, he hadn’t known that such a phenomenon as
an inner child existed.
The German psychotherapist Prof. Dr. Luise Reddemann describes
in her book for specialists “Imagination as a Healing Power”,
how one can deal with one’s inner child. The imagination
provides an excellent means in getting to know one’s inner
child. One’s own inner child can be quieted and encouraged by
means of imagination when feeling anxious and helpless. This
leads to a stronger ego and emotional stability in an adult.
(The imagination brings pictures and associations which are
quite emotional. They are often the pictures we experience in
our dreams. These “dream pictures” can be used in a healing
process during therapy).
Fears of not living up to values
and how we can overcome such fears
In my seminars about
logotherapy
(meaning-based psychology, Prof. Victor E. Frankl) participants
were always fascinated by the following idea: Our personal lives
are more or less consciously directed by our unique and
individual value systems. Our life anxieties are closely
intertwined with our personal value systems. Major life
anxieties can only be overcome if we know our personal value
systems and work on their structures. I was often very surprised
to learn, during my seminary work and counselling, that young
people often don’t know their own personal value structures at
all. Before we continue along the lines of life anxieties, we
have to clarify one question: What are values? Values are
that which make our lives valuable. My values are what make my
life worth living. My heart beats with these values. Our
instincts, sexuality and aggression are driving forces. Our
values draw us like magnets and give our lives direction,
structure, meaning and identity. In every logotherapy course I
asked the participants about their values. They then listed
their values: My house, my property (material values), work,
social status, friendship, “my family”, faithfulness, humour,
responsibility (social values), health, intelligence, peace of
mind, good self-image, experience of nature, making music,
“working in my garden”, love, “my belief in God” and many other
values. When individuals fail to develop a set of values,
they try to find satisfaction in a superficially sensual life;
in sex, dangerous adventures and, in extreme cases, drugs. In
the long run, an emptiness remains and this can result in
worries, depression and anxieties.
Since people know that values are imperative for their
existences, they develop a fear of losing touch with their
values in certain phases of life. On the one hand, these values
help protect them from being disoriented, fearful or depressed.
On the other hand, our values can be threatened which can cause
anxieties. We experience this threatening of values especially
in critical situations:
a partnership no longer functions, our children fall ill or have
an accident, we must recover from a severe illness, we are
threatened by unemployment, conflicts and confrontations make us
feel insecure and our self-image is threatened. An important
realisation: If you have no values or only one value, you will
experience many more anxieties than you would if you had a full
and varied value system. Example: when a single mother only
identifies with her child so that her child is her only value,
she will be overly concerned about the possibility of losing her
child. If you focus on one value and other values are less
important for you, then you have a pyramid value system.
Adults with a pyramid value system suffer especially from a fear
of loss and from depression. Often successful managers
suffer because their work and companies are all that is
important to them. That is why it is important to form a
parallel value system. If one value such as work is threatened,
then you can be secure in finding satisfaction in other values –
for example a relationship, friends, a hobby, your intellectual
and spiritual abilities. These will enable you to continue to
lead a meaningful life.
We can also differentiate between values that we can easily lose
and those which are more durable and which we aren’t likely to
lose.
You can lose your car quite easily in an accident, but your
intelligence, your ability to have good ideas and to love are
meaningful values that no one can take from you. You have to
believe in these values and this will help you remain calm
during critical times. I’m impressed by people who say that they
rely on their beliefs or their love of God as an everlasting
religious value. Why should these people suffer from anxieties
when they can rely on this value? His true belief in God enabled
the famous theologist Dietrich Bonhoeffer to console himself
when still in a concentration camp and compose a song:
“Protected by wonderful powers, we await whatever lies ahead...”
How can you get to know your personal value system better?
Dealing with your
dreams, but also
other methods will lead you to discover your most important
values. I hope that you’ll get to know your value system and
discover your lasting values!
© Dipl.-Päd. Jürgen Bendszus 2010
All rights reserved. This site is for
information and support only and not a substitute for
professional diagnosis and treatment.
Titel of the original German
text: Ursachen
der Angst und Angstbewältigung
