This emotion frightens us, although fear is necessary for our survival. Its contradictory nature is quite understandable, says psychotherapist Varvara Sidorova. If we figure out how justified our fears are, we can find many effective ways to overcome them.
Psychologies: What is fear?
Varvara Sidorova: Emotion that helps us navigate the situation and behave as circumstances require, without connecting the intellect (our intellect is a very slow machine). Every person has a small background level of fear from birth, it makes us all the time to be a little on our guard. This feature is a tribute to the distant past: if our ancestors who lived in the wild had no fear, they would simply … be eaten.
We get used to the basic fear and almost do not feel it. A whole set of protective mental mechanisms helps us to live with it. But if they fail, a person develops anxiety disorders, obsessive thoughts, phobias, that is, unconstructive fear. As for constructive fear, it always spurs us to action.
What exactly is causing it?
A danger that can be either real (an aggressive group of drunk people) or fictional (for example, a person is afraid of ghosts). In addition, we may be worried about our future: we are waiting for something unknown, and this scares us. Or suddenly something happens that we did not expect and did not plan. For example, a motorcycle suddenly flies out from behind a corner … We startle in surprise: this biological mechanism, which animals also have, brings our muscles into tone, preparing them for a quick reaction. We do not yet know what we will need to do — run away, hide or attack, but we will need the muscles in any case.
Yet fear is a negative emotion…
Of course, because he is unpleasant to us! We do not want to be afraid, we are trying to change the situation as quickly as possible and be safe. And this is the paradox of fear: if it were pleasant to us, we would not pay such attention to it! Interestingly, fears rarely live on their own, usually they find a guise for themselves. Why is it said that it is easier to be afraid of something specific? In the unknown, everything frightens us, and we don’t know what to “fight” with.
A good tool is to devalue fear, to find the right scale for it.
It is easier to be afraid of something specific because then we can act against it. Activity reduces fear. A great metaphor for fear is the boggarts from the Harry Potter books. They always appear before the heroes of the novel in the form of what frightens them, in the form of a bat or a mummy wrapped in bandages. If Harry Potter or his friends manage to make their fear funny, the boggart will die. And they won’t be afraid.
Is laughter the cure for fear?
Magnificent! But not the only one. In general, we intuitively find ways to deal with fear. You can explore it, talk it out, pull out of the twilight into the bright light what scares you. Another good tool is to devalue fear, to find the right scale for it. Or approach even more rationally: if I, for example, am afraid that a child will get hit by a car, I will devote more time to teaching him to follow the rules of the road and be attentive even when he crosses the street on a green light. Another technique: to bring the situation to the point of absurdity. For example, you are afraid of losing your job. Follow the chain that your fear whispers to you: I will be fired, I will be left without money, all my relatives will leave me, I will sell (lose) my apartment and die under the fence from cold and hunger … Now relate this to reality and … calm down.
What is a phobia?
The disproportion between fear and the cause that causes it. For example, the fear of spiders. Surely they cause some dislike for each of us, but usually this fear is proportionate: if a spider falls on me, I will shake it off, maybe I will shudder or scream, but I will immediately forget about it. If a person faints, even when he just sees a cobweb in the corner … this is a phobia: a huge fear is planted on a small irritant. Some phobias are conditional: in the distant past, insects could harm us, and we do not want them to come into contact with our skin.
But often uncontrollable fears have no real biological basis: for example, the fear of gray cars or the risk of dying from suffocation in the subway. Perhaps the person had a negative experience: he was almost hit by a gray car, or once, when he had a cold, he did not have enough air in a train car. At that moment, the fear was justified, but then it took root in the psyche, grew, and it turned out that the stimulus — real circumstances — and the excessive fear that arises in response are disproportionate.
Where does fear come from in children?
It occurs from the moment of birth, but children have not yet formed mental defenses. And so they are afraid of potentially life-threatening things, such as darkness or an unreliable surface under their feet (cracks in the asphalt). If the child is afraid of Baba Yaga or some other anthropomorphic creatures, most likely this is due to the fact that something has appeared in his relations with adults that causes fear or tension. But he does not associate him with his father, mother or grandmother, but is afraid of Baba Yaga or Barmaley.
What helps children?
Including scary tales — stories about how to overcome fear. It is they who help to work out psychological defenses: at first they were frightened, then they defeated what caused fear, and finally calmed down. If your child is afraid of something in particular, like a loud humming vacuum cleaner, invite them to explore the object together to see that it is not dangerous at all.