Anxiety and the Fear of the Dark
Posted on 12-11-2022 11:56 AM
Effective anxiety treatment today focuses on the brain processes that need adjusting so that somebody can overcome their anxiety. It is believed that the basic nature of anxiety has survived throughout the years. The brain and nervous system, they are just now starting to understand what causes it.
It is a fundamental truth in psychology that a problem can't be solved by changing the nature of the problem. A person is not a problem, a situation is not a problem, but a person's innate disposition toward change. The most significant aspect of how we think is our approach to life. By getting to the core of how we approach life with mindfulness we can begin to change how we think so that we approach life with less fear, more joy and more calm.
There are two ways that one can try to get to the core of how one thinks - through an intellectual approach and through a introspective approach. The intellectual approach starts with a mental test, a personality test or a psychological test. The introspective approach starts with talking to a trusted person and analyzing the way one thinks. The cognitive technique on cognitive therapy looks at the way one thinks, and then the way one approaches life. Then the cognitive technique puts that information into action. The result of that kind of therapy is that there are patterns that are discovered, and then the cognitive technique then analyzes those patterns to see how they affect the person's approach to life.
Through introspection the core of how one thinks can be uncovered by entering the mind of someone who has more understanding than the average person, and then using that information to change the way you think. In cognitive therapy the core of how one thinks can be discovered by entering the mind of someone who has mental illnesses, and then using that information to treat the illness in a different way. Then through the effect of a certain behavior on another individual, you can see how certain behaviors lead to negative results. This results in new behavior patterns that will lead to a healthier lifestyle.
In cognitive therapy there are 3 basic cognitive techniques that are used - as a learner, as an observer, and as an expert. A learner watches others interact with themselves and their environment. An observer observes how people interact with others and their environment. An expert uses the 3 techniques to treat anxiety, phobia and OCD. The outcome of cognitive therapy is that it changes your approach to life so that you will not suffer the consequences of the old way of thinking, so that you will not suffer the consequences of the new way of thinking. And that is what cognitive therapy aims for - to bring you back to health.
I was not an expert in anything except for one discipline, and I made it through high school and my undergraduate degree. Then my phobia got the better of me and I dropped out of college and my professional life. I was an expert at watching other people interact with themselves and their environment, an expert at observing behavior, but I was not an expert at treating my phobia, and no one had any idea how to treat it. After months of research I finally concluded that the only way to cure my phobia was to spend a year being a sponge observing other people interacting with their environment, and a year as an observer I proved to myself that I was not going to waste my time. I was not going to become a person who watched other people interact with their environment. I was going to become a person who watched myself interact with my environment and then use that information to cure my phobia.
I started working as a volunteer at a mental institution. The people who work at these places are not paid very much and their purpose is to help other people. They are usually sick people who can't afford to pay someone to talk to them. I learned a lot about the treatment of phobia. The phobia here is panic disorder, and the treatment is Cognitive Behavior Therapy. So, I began the therapy.
By going to a mental institution I learned that the typical mental patient is a person who has gone through a severe traumatic experience in their life and this severe traumatic experience does happen to almost all people, but it happens to some people much more than to others. Many people never have a severe traumatic experience, and never have panic disorder. In a few months I began to understand that my phobia was a fear of being in a bad situation, which is a feeling that everyone has at one time or another. So, by going to a mental institution I learned that most phobias are fears of being in a bad situation most of the time.
Then, I went on to a psychiatric hospital, which is like a non-profit mental institution that takes serious illnesses that interfere with a person's ability to function and treats them using medications and therapies to get them functioning normally. Then, I went to a psychiatric ward, which is a space where medications are not allowed and the medications are provided by the pharmaceutical companies. So, I went to a place where they gave me an antibiotic while I was watching myself interact with my environment. And I went to a place where the staff didn't know how to treat my phobia, and there they got better results than anywhere else.
Then, I went to a cognitive therapy unit, where they asked me to learn how to deal with my fears, which are very difficult to deal with and I had to learn how to deal with them while I watched myself interact with the objects. They said that I would be given a mirror so I could look at myself while talking to myself, and then the staff would ask me if I was afraid of the objects I was interacting with, which then created anxiety in me. I had to walk through a maze which was constructed like a maze, and there I got to see how my brain reacts to the sight of a maze, and I had to go back to the psychologist to see how my brain reacted to walking through the maze. Then I went to an exposure therapy unit where they gave me a light that would go on whenever I faced a thing that frightened me, and this light would remain on for a limited period of time, and then would turn off. I faced my fear and it would go out of control, and the fear would dissipate and I would not face it anymore. So, my phobia can be treated with therapy, medication and in some cases a light box, and in others I will not face a thing and will allow the light box to take the place of the phobia.
At this point, I would like to point out that this will not cure your phobia, but at least you will know what it is that is causing you anxiety. For me, my phobia is the dark, and it has nothing to do with the movie "Childhood's End" or even "The Stand" but rather the movie "Children of the Corn" or "Night of the Living Dead" which are very realistic movies. I do not face anything in those movies and just watched them to learn from them, and then in some cases I do face something in a movie and my brain creates an anxiety reaction to that, but my heart is fine.