Did you know that fear can control your behavior if you let
it? David Ropeik an instructor at Harvard University and co-author of “RISK! A
Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in
the World Around You” argues that humans are hard-wired to fear first and think
second. Knowing that you have a surgery
scheduled you worry about all kinds of things; needles, anaesthetic, whether
you will wake up or die under the knife. This writer for instance has a bizarre
fear of heights.
On a trip to Mecca five years ago I could not climb higher
than a certain height as when I turned around I was almost looming over the
city and felt like giving in to gravity and toppling over. How does one deal
with phobias and this kind of fear? People who have never experienced anxiety
and had full-blown panic attacks do not understand the fear of the sufferer and
even though it is demonstrated to you time and again that you can conquer fear,
the person does not believe it. Not fully. Not easily. Scientists agree that
fear originates in a part of the brain called the amygdala where the ‘fight or
flight’ response is launched.
According
to Dr Christopher Leonhard of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology who
specializes in phobias and anxiety, our bodies come biologically prepared to go
into a fear reaction’. The question, however is not whether a fear is learned
or instinctive, but rather what it is that causes the person to respond so
fearfully. To paraphrase, ‘what is learned early on and quickly, is the type of
circumstance in your environment that causes you to go into that fear response.’
What can be learned from this is that while fear is instinctive and necessary
for survival one can be taught what to fear.
Treatment for fear
Some medications can effectively treat fears and anxieties
and this should be administered only after consulting a doctor. Another way to
treat fear is extinction which involves a step-by-step approach to confront
your fears. The idea behind this kind of therapy is to ‘feel’ and process the
fear, to face it, and in time to conquer that fear. Leonhard is quick to remind
you that while the benefits of extinctions are long-lasting it does not mean
that the person will not have another fearful response. “But now you’ll know
what to do.”
©2001 - 2012 Medill Reports - Chicago, Northwestern University. A
publication of the Medill School.
