Fear of spiders, planes, crowds, confined spaces… According to psychoanalysts, the cause of panic fears and phobias that poison our lives is hidden in our family history. And even deeper – in the relationship with the mother.
Phobias are many and varied. People are terribly afraid of literally everything in the world – heights, darkness, doctors and their manipulations. However, all phobias have one thing in common: they grow from the inability of a person to separate (separate) from his own mother.
This is the original opinion of the psychoanalyst Irene Diamantis: “A person cannot break away from a familiar, safe environment, it is difficult for him to enter the space of the outside world.” Let’s try to take a fresh look at one of the most common problems of our time.
What is a phobia?
Irene Diamantis: Translated from ancient Greek, phobia means “horror.” The mind turns off, time stops, and a person feels completely helpless in the face of a danger that seems mortal to him. Phobias poison life, do not allow to act, love, enjoy the moment.
My patients often tell me about this: “I won’t go to the doctor, why do I need bad news?”; “I can only drive on freeways – the emptiness of ordinary roads is terrifying.” “I hate birds, they are up to no good.” “I’m flying in an airplane, I can’t close my eyes, relax: as if my vigilance will prevent the liner from crashing” …
Some shudder at the thought of someone looking at them in a cafe. A phobia occurs when the familiar world collapses. A rat, a bird, a spider, someone else’s gaze is just a trigger, a red button. If you click on it, work immediately starts inside.
How does a phobia occur?
I. D .: Once I was sitting in a pizzeria with my two-year-old nephew. Everything was going well until he suddenly refused to sit down: something frightened him of the most ordinary chair. There was nothing rational in his fear. But he ate standing up.
Fortunately, this phobia disappeared as quickly as it appeared. In general, all children have fears and phobias that arise at different stages of development (and then, ideally, disappear).
The child begins to eat on his own – the time when he was fed is running out. Or trying to speak – the era is ending when words were not needed to communicate with the mother. In this time of crisis, a variety of unfounded fears can appear.
Almost everyone has phobias, and the reason for their appearance is difficulties in separation.
Is it true that some people are more prone to phobias than others?
I. D .: Almost everyone has phobias, and the reason for their appearance is the difficulty in separation. While some children find it easier to separate from their mother, others find it more difficult. For example, in the event that the mother involuntarily conveyed to the child the information that the world is dangerous, people are evil, and dogs bite.
Or she made attempts to help the child become autonomous, but they were inept, maybe even rude. I see in the parks that women wear maternity dresses, even when the child is already three years old: they can’t leave him.
Others hold children on their knees, not realizing that they would feel much happier in the sandbox with other children … So, without realizing, they set the stage for future phobias – fear of the look or judgment of another, everything that is outside the familiar world of the family .
It turns out that phobias testify to the mental immaturity of a person?
I. D .: Yes, and at the same time – about a rich imagination, about fantasies that prevail over reality. For phobics, the entire planet is a giant womb, at least until reality reminds them that this is not true.
Some part of their personality was delayed in development at the stage when it was possible to survive only by clinging to the mother. But this mental umbilical cord is not always experienced as love, love affection.
In the imagination of some, the image of an omnipotent mother arises, having the right to execute or pardon. They have a real feeling that no one will help them part with her, “go out into the world” from a cramped home world.
People suffering from phobias live in the closed space of their nightmares and do not separate themselves from them. A person who is afraid cannot prove anything. If he is told that there is no danger, he thinks: “What if there is a spider under the bed after all?”
Their dream is to always be close to their mother?
I. D .: No, that’s the point! A child who, for example, is afraid to go to school, is horrified at the thought that his mother will not be around, but he also suffers from the fact that he is not able to be with other children.
He feels hurt, ashamed of himself. She is afraid of the thought that she needs to go forward, where there will be no mother, knowing full well that remaining a prisoner of her world is even more dangerous than facing the unknown.
The less we love ourselves, the less we feel safe
Can we realize the connection of phobias with the fear of leaving the mother?
I. D .: This connection can only be realized with the help of therapy, psychoanalysis. Moreover, we must take into account that our psyche will be cunning and adapt: blame everything on another family, friends, work …
In fact, all these factors replace in our minds the umbilical cord that connects us with the family clan and with the mother.
What kind of help does a person suffering from a phobia need?
I. D .: Such people have problems with self-esteem, self-worth, self-love: the less we love ourselves, the less we feel safe. It seems that experiences that increase our self-esteem, flatter our self-esteem, weaken a phobia – for example, when we fall in love and our virtues are appreciated.
But love can end or weaken, while a person suffering from a phobia has a tendency to merge with the object of his passion and imagine that without this partner he is nothing (as is the case with his mother). Therefore, oddly enough, the positive restructuring of a person suffering from phobias is easier to pass alone, alone with himself.
When there is a gradual immersion in family history and attempts are made to see what exactly prevents a person from accepting life as it is – with inevitable separations and necessary transformations.