I always found it very frustrating that our rational minds cannot convince us that most of our fears and fears are nothing to be afraid of. Many of my customers express the same frustration. As the philosopher Michel de Montaigne said: "My life was full of terrible accidents, most of which never happened." Unfortunately, this is true of many of us, and no positive thinking, no confirmation, or even a cognitive transformation becomes anything else touch the most superficial layers of fear.
As a teenager, I was looking for answers to this problem. It started with the questions that all good young people ask themselves: why are we here? Who am I really? What can you do about suffering? As a young man, this investigation literally took me around the world when I met a Zoroastrian high priest in Mumbai, a Zen master in Kyoto, fire walkers in Sri Lanka and fakirs in Bali, and many others, and had an exchange leader in "Consciousness" -Move. One of my key findings was that fear is fundamental to human experience … and generally.
This piqued my interest because I recognized the constant fear, feeling of threat and hypervigilance that seemed to be necessary to “survive” not only as overwhelming but also as a fruitless way of life. Later, I directed this interest into a career as a psychologist and particularly devoted myself to studying fear. At some point in my search, I came to the conclusion that fear is not only a fundamental, but the greatest cause of suffering in life – even more central than depression.
Over the years, my personal exploration and work with clients revealed certain repeating patterns about the basics of fear. This resulted in a new treatment model, which received great attention not only because of its effectiveness in the treatment of anxiety, but also as a new therapeutic approach in general. It synthesizes various Eastern and Western modalities to break down fear into its most basic components. The model assumes a “basic fear” (cf. Karen Horney) as the cause of our difficulties and determines the exact moment and mechanism by which fear took root and changed our perception, creating a world of distorted and painful experiences.
The model describes in many ways a radically new understanding of the origin of fear both in the individual and in the evolution of mankind. It describes the arrival of a "core fear" – the prevailing interpretation of life as dangerous and a "main defense" – the primary strategy to protect yourself from this danger. The core fear and the main defense create a unique dynamic, which according to the model is the true source of basic fear. Together they open a Pandora's box with all of our fear-based experiences and create a worried worldview.
The deconstructing fear model assumes that our original state of being is a state of wholeness and fulfillment. But at a young age (and maybe even in the womb according to Otto Range's concept of birth trauma) we have our first contact with the danger that creates our core anxiety. Our mother leaves the room and we think he is forever. Our father is distant and cold, and we are tired of it.
With the arrival of core anxiety, we have to choose a strategy for self-protection – our main defense. This strategy, because it assumes that "something is against us", makes us separate from the whole – from others, from what we need, from fulfillment. Armed with our main defense, we go in search of restoring our original well-being.
Since this quest is motivated by fear (the fear of being separated from what we need), it can never be successful: since we focus on avoiding fear, our attention is drawn from all the dangers in Claimed that could sabotage our search. In this way the core fear and the main defense become the original cause and the originator of our misfortune. As a strategy to protect us from danger, they project our fears onto reality so that we are prepared for them. This projection, as I like to call it, creates a three-dimensional, multisensory hologram – a living, breathing distortion of perception that is based on fearful premises. The big problem with human suffering is that we forget that this is just a projection and we see the hologram as "real".
Combining insight and action
What to do about this very human situation? According to our model, we need to thoroughly reduce our fear to the core anxiety and primary defense that caused the problems in the first place. Only then can we see that they consist of learned constructs built from childhood assumptions that no longer serve us.
That sounds normal, but the model completely redefines what it means to do such a deconstruction. Only when we have reached the root of the root, the original mistake (both individually and in humanity as a collective), can we really gain the insight to show that our fears persist are not founded. This depth of insight is rare. So often it is unclear to us why we suffer. despite our best efforts and insights, we lose ourselves in the catacombs of unconscious fears without a secure compass to guide our course.
Even if we get true insight into the original idea of fear at the root of suffering, neuroscience may show that corrective measures may be needed to really resolve the fear. This is because fear can be written into our physiology in a way that insight alone cannot cure. Finding the right measure to uncover the illusion of our fear can also be a challenge.
The right combination of insight and action is our goal. To this end, the deconstructing fear model has developed two powerful techniques that quickly reveal core anxiety and primary defense. These diagnostic tools remove our confusion and explain the original cause of our suffering with comprehensive insights. Such insights suggest the necessary tools for action (which are also included in our model) to solve the problem. Taken together, these practices help to get behind the camera, so to speak, that project our individual and collective worlds of fearful perception.
Finding the core fear
The deconstruction process begins with an exercise to find your own core fear, which is referred to as the “gold trench”. With this technology, we can quickly and reliably uncover the basic idea – or we do it for our customers – that has distorted our perception for a lifetime. This exercise is the cornerstone of our model, which uses a deconstruction process that leads directly to root anxiety in all other respects. How it works:
Start (or let your customers do it) by writing an issue in the upper left corner of a page. Every problem will do it because, as we shall see, all problems arise from the same core fear. Make sure your answer is given as an actual problem and is written in a short sentence such as "My friend complained to me" or "I cannot pay my bills". Then write one of the following three questions on the right side of the same line of the page. Choose which of these questions seems the most fruitful:
1) Why does this bother me?
2) What am I afraid will happen next?
3) What am I afraid of, will I miss or lose?
Answer the question with another short sentence that is on the left under the first problem. This answer should include a new problem that brings you one level closer to the core anxiety underlying the original problem. Ask one of the three same questions on the right side of this second line and answer with a short, simple answer on the third line on the left. Continue this process until you get to what you clearly recognize as the core fear – a fundamental truth about the true source of the problem you started with. (Exercise structure see box below.)
You will know that you have reached core anxiety if you a) always get the same answer to the questions and cannot find a deeper source of fear, and b) have an "Aha!" Experience, a deep one Acknowledgment for this The answer explains something essential at the base of your thinking. Spontaneous connections between the core fear and important events from the past become visible, sometimes accompanied by evocation of powerful emotions and even catharsis.
However, the real meaning of this tool is that when you repeat with various problems, you find that it not only uncovers the root of a particular problem or problems, but the true root of literally any problem you may have. This is necessarily because the core fear is your fundamental interpretation – the overriding assumption – of how the world can be dangerous or threatening. (Note: There are five key fears or “universal loss themes” that capture the basic interpretations of the dangers we all face. They are 1) fear of abandonment, 2) loss of identity, 3) loss of meaning, 4) futility, and 5 ) Fear of death, including fear of illness and pain.)
Because it is so threatening, so selfish with our previous state of wholeness, when we land on the core fear interpretation, it makes a strong impression on the psyche. We hold on to it as the key to survival – that which makes sense of the danger we have encountered and we are preparing to be prepared for it in the future. It becomes our new understanding of the world, the filter through which we interpret any experience that represents the possibility of danger (or that we can imagine).
Search for the main defense
Once we find our core fear, we need to decipher our main defense, defined as the primary strategy to protect ourselves from core fear. Just as with core anxiety, we desperately cling to the main defense and believe that this is necessary for survival. With this strategy, however, we unintentionally involve ourselves in other fears because we react to the idea of core fear as if it were real, as if we were actually in danger and our protective maneuvers were necessary.
As already mentioned, this is always a distortion of the truth. If we examined the real situation, in the worst case, we would find a problem that we can deal with instead of fearing the catastrophe that we would have imagined from our core fear. In most cases, we find that the feared situation poses no threat at all – that the entire idea of danger has been invented, a remnant of childhood beliefs that have long been held but never questioned.
In order to find the main defense, we simply ask: "How do I usually react to core anxiety (or to a threat to well-being, since everyone arises from core anxiety)?" We Have Become We are as used to our main defense as to our automatic (and only) response to problems that we don't normally see as alternatives. But to get an overview of our own alleged reaction, we can ask: "How could someone else react in this situation?" Or "What is my typical response (overall) when I am challenged or threatened?"
We can also look at many of the most important decisions we have made in life and how these decisions are designed to protect us from the core fear of these moments (e.g., fear of making the wrong decision) , There are several other methods of gaining insight into the main defense (a full description of these practices can be found in my other publications), but they are all really different methods of asking, "What is my personality style?" Because it is Core anxiety and primary defense that determine our unique way (our "personality") of interpreting and responding to the variety of circumstances that life can throw at us.
It's worth repeating: The big discovery with this approach is that the core dynamics of the main fear defense provide a comprehensive explanation of why we suffer. It not only strengthens our personality, but describes the entire way in which we have learned to orientate ourselves and deal with life. The extent to which we fight is the extent to which we have not resolved these fundamental drivers. Remember, even if you are dealing with a problem at the moment, any countermeasures will ultimately fail and reinforce and exacerbate the problem you should be protecting us from. If we repeat these exercises over and over, we can prove for ourselves that a core fear and a main defense are actually acting behind the scenes if we do not experience the deep fulfillment and the feeling of wholeness that was our original state.
As soon as we have an insight into the core fear and the main defense, we are ready to take corrective measures. The deconstructing fear model has developed several new techniques, including "The Alchemist," "The Witness," and "The Warrior's Attitude" to reduce the main defense and resolve core anxiety. Each of these techniques has been clinically proven to be extremely effective in shaking off the hypnotizing effect of fear and raising our awareness of the real reality that was hiding it. As if we were pulling the curtain back in The Wizard of Oz and doing the opposite of what our main defenses would ask us to do to expose the core fear that lies within. This revelation of core fear – the secret, original source of our difficulties – shows that it is ineffective. It's just a mouse that shouted roaring, huge and grotesque shadows on the wall but didn't pose any real threat.
There is not enough room in this article to go into these techniques, but each is to determine exactly when our main defense is used. By targeting this moment, we can "do the opposite" and expose core fear (rather than defending it) and reveal its true and distorted nature. But to do this, we have to move thoroughly through the fear (at least in the imagination) of "not obeying" the command of the main defense. This enables us to withdraw from the automatic responses of our personality style, view them as arbitrary, and encourage a more effective response. Combine this with the understanding that there is a core fear and a main defense that is responsible for our life in the world, and these exercises give us the opportunity to unravel the whole world of projection that emanates from them. It lets us see through the appearance of danger and shows that fear is a lie – an optical illusion, if you will – distorted by so much smoke and mirrors.
Case Study
Peter (not his real name) was a 48-year-old man suffering from generalized anxiety disorder. He was particularly concerned about the notion of physical illness and pain and emotional rejection, and struggled with the limitations of being human. At our first meeting it became clear that he had grown up from a caring mother who had protected him too well from life's needs.
When Peter was 9 months old, he became very ill and was hospitalized. In addition to the physical pain he was experiencing, he must have been afraid of being separated from his mother in a strange, cold environment where strangers nudged and nudged him. When he returned to the security of his home, he stepped back, clung tightly to his mother, and showed behaviors he had previously grown out of. He remained young and dependent during his childhood.
At the age of 14, Peter started a turbulent puberty and experienced his hormonal changes as an overwhelming challenge for his identity. His first answer was to cling to his parents, but for the first time since his experience in the hospital, they couldn't calm him down. This increased his fear even more and cemented his core fear, which he described to me as "exposed to the elements and death, without any real security". His answer at the age of 14 was to make a powerful decision his parents had made. If he couldn't protect him, he would find a way to get a sense of self-control.
As Peter grew older, this led to various behaviors (what the deconstructing fear model calls "secondary defense") in which he would be "the best" in everything he pursued: the best student, the best Athlete, the most popular child in school and so on. These behaviors were his strategy to regain the sense of security he once knew. He put these secondary defenses together and described his main defense (the umbrella description above everything) as "I have to be something special".
This answer style would become Peter's personality and follow him throughout his life. Although it created a lot of ambition in Peter – an urge to reach his full potential – it was clear that this urge was driven by fear, a somewhat desperate need to be special. Therefore, he rejected his fear of accepting the necessary limits of human condition in a way that could have led to real growth and transformation. Instead, Peter felt trapped in a repetitive loop that was the cause of his general fear – every time he got scared, he seriously tried to "defeat" the problem, looking for the next way around his value and his To prove "specialty". ”Like any defense, this would provide temporary relief, but then backfire and inevitably create more fear when Peter is faced with a new vulnerability, starting the process all over again.
In our work together, Peter quickly exposed his core anxiety and main defense and developed a healthy understanding of the futility of the well-being strategy they proposed. With this knowledge, we started the corrective exercises in the deconstruction anxiety program. In any case, we gently but firmly grappled with Peter's main defense of being as something special and practiced "doing the opposite".
These exercises were aimed at the moment when Peter defended himself against his core fear and provided a structure to move safely and completely through the defense. In this way, Peter could see the impulse to exercise his main defense as an arbitrary decision. This enabled him (in the imagination) to experience the full power of his core fear and to reach a deep acceptance of what he had been running from all his life. In the process, Peter's top defense "dissolved" (his word) and can no longer convince him that something needs to be defended. He was afraid of not being special and relaxed, faced with the fact that he is "normal, just like everyone else". However, he no longer interpreted this as a source of pain or disappointment.
On the contrary, with a surprised expression on his face, he said: "It is so liberating to be ordinary. I see how I have worked so hard all my life to prove that I am something special I was only worried because I was always worried about not reaching my goal. How ironic. I wanted to be special to get love and security, but I was the one who stayed away from it and thought I needed more be than me to deserve this love. "
This is not an isolated example. Every time we face the core fear without the interference of the main defense, we will find that the core fear is not "real" in the sense that we thought it would be. This is the promise to reduce fear: if we see clearly the hidden powers that have determined our lives, we can take the therapeutic measures that set us free. This means that we move through the main defense that has hidden our core fear, gently but firmly expose ourselves to fear and discover that our core fear has no power to carry out its threat as promised. Even if a problem remains to be resolved, once the assumptions that made it terrifying are eliminated, it is not a real call to fear.
We also find that most of our fears and fears are fully mature. The projections are based on ideas that we learned a long time ago and that do not affect our current circumstances. This is the great key to freedom, a recipe for how we can live our lives from a new premise – one that is not based on fear and restlessness, but on the ability to consciously guide our path towards our highest ideals and deepest fulfillments choose.
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Todd Pressman is a licensed psychologist, author, and speaker who specializes in the treatment of anxiety and the pursuit of fulfillment. His last book, Deconstructing Fear: The Journey from Fear to Fulfillment, was published last summer (see toddpressman.com for more information). Contact him at [email protected].
Knowledge Share articles were developed from sessions presented at the American Counseling Association conference.
Letters to the editor: [email protected]
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