A vitamin D deficiency during childhood, which influences calcium uptake can lead to the conditions when a child becomes easily scared.
What doesn’t have to be treated
We have to note that one has to distinguish between manifestations of phobias or neuroses and a natural activation of energy sources which takes place before crucial moments in our lives. For an actor who is about to go on stage or for an athlete getting ready for a competition feeling nervous is absolutely natural. There is a special term for it: stage fright. It is characterized by an increase of the heartbeat and hurried breathing. However, this is a healthy reaction if it doesn’t reach any extreme manifestations. Many people would experience the same feeling before public speaking or before an important meeting. The reason why we have to go through these physiological changes is to get some additional strength. It is a way the body prepares itself for a challenge, thus it’s a preparatory stage and not some traumatic consequences.
Lack of confidence, however uncomfortable it may be, cannot be considered as a traumatic consequence either. What one might find there is the lack of competence and a feeling of one’s vulnerability but there is no psychological wound.
It is the reaction to psychotrauma that we would like to talk about in this book. According to the clinical scale “psychosis – psychopathy – neurosis,” we will focus our attention on the disorders of the neurotic level.
A phobia is an information trauma
A phobia is a result of an injury inflicted by frightening information at the moment of one’s confusion. This process triggers old survival strategies characterised by stereotypic simulation of defence mechanisms caused by any sign of danger, however distant and associative it may be.
In other words, a phobia is the state of a body when it experiences tension, feels traumatized by this encounter for the first time, and then tries to avoid this aspect of one’s life in subsequent situations.
When a physical trauma takes place, it means that a foreign object enters the tissue of the body. Trauma impedes the normal functioning of the body. In this case there is something that disrupts the integrity of the body and gets stuck in it (like a splinter, for example), and then there’s a reaction to this intrusion. The body cannot feel good unless this foreign object is removed. When our mind is traumatized, then it means that the “splinters” get into the body of our mind.
The signal of danger is like a splinter in this case. Our intellect fails to find an answer to an important question, and the body goes into emergency response based on the ancient strategies of survival. The trick is that this ancient reaction function in a single-shot mode. Having been activated once, it reappears every time when there’s even the slightest reminder of possible danger. This happens even in the situations when a new encounter doesn’t actually bear any harm but there’s just a hint of danger.
A phobia is similar to an allergy
Just like pollen might seem as a virus to a perturbed immune system, to a person suffering from a phobia some life circumstances are perceived as a threat which require an aggressive reaction, when in fact this problem can be resolved without panic.
Allergies are the state of heightened sensitivity, that is: excessive reaction of the immune system to the environment. A phobia has the same mechanism but at the psychological level. A phobia leads to the distortion of reality and to an inadequate energy-consuming response to a certain aspect of life.
What do our sensations reveal to us?
Fortunately, we are able to observe the processes that cause tension with the help of our internal vision. Our sensations function as a detector.
I have thoroughly studied the sensations of my patients suffering from phobias and discovered that there are two components in this feeling that one should learn to distinguish:
1. Fright as a trauma;
2. Fear as a reaction.
In the case of fright, we are talking about the information which our intellect failed to process and sent to the autonomic depths of our mind. If the intellectual response cannot be produced, then the body will provide an energetic one.
The signal that triggers autonomic reactions usually looks like greyness, darkness or blackness. When a person is frightened, it feels as if some black powder is poured through the top of the head to the solar plexus where it forms a lump of fear.
Ways to react
Fear leads to an increased heart rate and hyperventilation; it increases blood pressure, a person feels hot, there’s tension in the muscles, the pupils are dilated, and all the senses are heightened. When this happens, other functions, such as those responsible for digestion, rest and sexual interest are slowed down or upset. This is done in order to prepare the body for an attack or retreat. Mobilization effects are connected with the active work of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.
Fig. 1. Physiology of the autonomic nervous system: as we see, the work of the sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body, and parasympathetic brings it back to calmness and helps to store energy.
The opposite reaction is a collapse: blood pressure falls, and a person feels cool and close to fainting.
This reaction can be compared to the one of a bug that got touched: it keeps still and doesn’t make a single move.
There have been cases when people froze as if they were dead when meeting a bear, and the bear walked away.
We can see the similar reaction in the painting “The Nightmare” by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741—1825). Fear is sitting on the stomach, while the mind is “switched off”.
Such reaction can be justified at the moment of danger but the problem is that the person remains in this state even after the danger has passed. The body seems to find it hard to return from the extreme mode to a normal state.
Fig. 2. J.H. Füssli. The Nightmare. 1790.
Psychocatalysis helps in the case of phobias
The techniques which help set oneself free from phobias and other psychological traumas have been developed within the frames of my original methodology called Psychocatalysis. Psychocatalysis is a method of focusing the attention of a person on the processes that get stuck, with the intent of restoring these processes back to normal functionality. Our ability to trace the signals in our internal space is the foundation of our self-regulation. This ability can serve not only for diagnostics but also as a way to introduce changes. When the conscious attention of a person helps the profound wisdom of a body, even long-lasting fears can be cured within a short period of time. Now let’s take a closer look at how phobias are formed and what one should do to get rid of them quickly and easily.
1.3. How phobias appear
Rest state
A well-rested healthy person feels that his or her body is light and cool, there’s the feeling of calm in the chest, and his or her head is clear. It is as if the person was filled with light. Energy of the body is flowing freely, and the mind is calm. In a state like that a person is absolutely aware of the fact where he or she is and what is happening. This person knows what to do next. The inner self at the level of the solar plexus is guiding this person through life. Reason at the level of the forehead helps the person. At the level of the chest there’s a firm