KM
DR.
by ROBERT GOSLING
GOSLING IS A PSYCHIATRIST WORKING
AT THE
experience fear is an essential comhealthy personality; without it one could not survive for long as it makes possible the anticipation of danger. The danger that is anticipated may be seen as originating from outside A
capacity
ponent of
to
a
the individual or from some commotion within. a threat of injury or extermination may be seen as coming from some outside agent, or it may be experienced as a threat of being overwhelmed from within by powerful emotions. A cataclysm threatening from without may be no more terrifying than the threat of one's mind breaking up or becoming engulfed by uncontrollable passion. Fear of this sort may verge on terror but in milder forms it obviously has some part to play in preserving the individual's life and sanity. It may be useful to look at fear as consisting of two ingredients that are mixed together in various proportions. One ingredient, the one we have just considered, is usually experienced as the fear of injury and?in its most extreme form?as the fear of annihilation. The other ingredient is of a more indirect kind in that it arises from fear of injury to, or loss of, someone who is greatly valued by the individual and is experienced more as anxiety on behalf of another or, in an extreme form, as anguish. Where the first ingredient arises from an offence to the basic self-love that is essential for survival, the second ingredient arises from an offence to one's love for another that is essential for social life. Just as the first ingredient may be sensed as resulting from either an external or an internal threat, so too may the second. That is to say, the person who is loved, and whose safety is in jeopardy, may be either an actual external person or may be an image of oneself. In the former case one is afraid of losing someone one loves; in the latter one is afraid of losing one's self-esteem or
Thus,
self-respect. If the dreaded event takes place, in the former case one is left mourning his loss and in the latter one is left feeling guilty for what one has done or the image one has failed to live up to. In so far as a certain amount of self-esteem and a certain number of loving relationships are usually felt as
TAVISTOCK
CLINIC
essential to a life that is livable, at some point too great a loss of them is felt as a threat to life itselfThus it is that what, in mild form, is experienced as anguish for another or shame or guilt for oneself, in more violent form may turn into bitter self' hatred of such a kind that the self is in danger of being overwhelmed or annihilated. What starts as the sense of guilt that makes social life workable-' in that it insists both on respect for others and ofl respect for oneself?can end up as a suicidal de-
pression. Evidently, therefore,
a capacity for these two kinds of fear is needed if pitfalls are to be accurately anticipated and, when possible, avoided-" pitfalls in both actual bodily life and in emotional life. Without it, concern for others and for hoW others will see us cannot be exercised acutely enough to preserve the affectionate relationship5 that seem to be essential to healthy life. So the capacity to feel fearful is an essential feature of a personality that can learn from experience, that can develop by assimilating what is
lived through. Inevitably, in the course of development the personality, in its relative immaturity meets up with situations that are beyond its capacity for assimilation. Such situations are ex-
perienced as liable What, then, can itself? How
can
to overwhelm the personality' the personality do to preserve it avoid being overwhelmed? $ external one it can perhaps be
the danger is an avoided, or partially avoided, by taking evasive action. If the danger in fact arises from within the personality it can sometimes be imaginatively pro-
jected
outwards
on
to some feature of the environ'
ment which is then avoided as if it were the source
of the
danger. This is the mechanism of the comphobias in which the sufferer, though partly aware of the irrational nature of his dread, must yet avoid closed spaces, spiders, sharp knives of mon
whatever it is that has been endowed with the dangerous image and impulse. Another?and far more common?way of trying to deal with a threat from within the personality is to have nothing more to do with it, to banish it from what is recognised as the 'self', to cut o$ from what is acknowledged as 'me' that part of
the
personality
that is connected with the hatred
undoing, as he felt, began to feel great tenderness towards her. The inevitable let-downs he then experienced at the hands of this ordinary mortal were felt by him to be as painful and baffling as were his experiences with his mother; he was repression'. faced by a re-emergence of just that segment of exSuch banishment of parts of the personality perience he had consciously been at pains to avoid. from what is permitted in the arena of It was, however, for various reasons possible everyday nving is a ubiquitous mechanism of self-manage- for him, through the course of time, to forgive his ment, but it also leads to some degree of depletion wife for some of these injuries and to find that ?f the personality. The more fierce and tyrannical tender feelings were not only possible but even the banishment is, the more shorn the personality beneficial to his and his wife's life together. Though ^11 be of its at one time it had seemed he would have to grow richness. Everyone is more or less inhibited in this way, up in such a way as to exclude all relationships ut the inhibition can sometimes reach crippling that threatened to arouse his tender feelings?and Proportions?in so to live a markedly impoverished life?in the realm of social participation fact, ?r in the realm of imagination. The segments of through the tribulations of a marriage that both that are banished in this way are no partners ardently supported, he was able to regain onger available for everyday use and so lie around a banished segment of himself. lr* the This man was fortunate in many ways. He was unconscious recesses of the mind in their 0riginal archaic forms unmodified by subsequent fortunate in the wife he had managed to choose In addition to their not being available for himself, and in the fact that his fear of a recur?r everyday life?to add depth and colour to rence of the emotional bafflement he had experi^hat is being lived through?they are inclined to enced with his mother was not so great that he when least expected, to burst clumsily had had to banish the experience so fiercely and toto a life that is being conducted in quite a tyranically that it was beyond recall and thered|fferent style. fore beyond the possibility of subsequent assimilaSuch sudden intrusions can be intensely per- tion. P exing and frightening in themselves and lead to Events that lead through fear to the depletion sUch remarks as 'I of the personality in this way have been termed don't know what took hold of or 'He is not really himself today'. Less sudden 'traumatic'. Everyone's past is strewn with them, nd more but the permanence of their effects depends upon continuous intrusions are experienced as least two factors; first, the occasions that life at of the peculiarities personality .?at perversely obstruct the individual's conscious subsequently offers for them to be re-experienced, reconsidered and to some extent re-integrated (such such as in the man who hates domiwomen yet behaves in such a way as to occasions may be found in marriage, in psycho'nvite them to dominate him, or in the woman who therapy or in some other experience that provides ePlores uncouth sexuality yet contrives to get her- for a degree of emotional commitment). The etf second factor is the fierceness with which all remconstantly accosted or even raped. As an nants of the 'traumatic experience' have been example we may think of a man who, as child, found that his loving feelings for his mother banished from the conscious part of the perWays landed him in a most painful disappoint- sonality. This fierceness is usually felt to be erU and sense of confusion. Much of his subequally matched by the dread of its re-entry which e
DR.
by ROBERT GOSLING
GOSLING IS A PSYCHIATRIST WORKING
AT THE
experience fear is an essential comhealthy personality; without it one could not survive for long as it makes possible the anticipation of danger. The danger that is anticipated may be seen as originating from outside A
capacity
ponent of
to
a
the individual or from some commotion within. a threat of injury or extermination may be seen as coming from some outside agent, or it may be experienced as a threat of being overwhelmed from within by powerful emotions. A cataclysm threatening from without may be no more terrifying than the threat of one's mind breaking up or becoming engulfed by uncontrollable passion. Fear of this sort may verge on terror but in milder forms it obviously has some part to play in preserving the individual's life and sanity. It may be useful to look at fear as consisting of two ingredients that are mixed together in various proportions. One ingredient, the one we have just considered, is usually experienced as the fear of injury and?in its most extreme form?as the fear of annihilation. The other ingredient is of a more indirect kind in that it arises from fear of injury to, or loss of, someone who is greatly valued by the individual and is experienced more as anxiety on behalf of another or, in an extreme form, as anguish. Where the first ingredient arises from an offence to the basic self-love that is essential for survival, the second ingredient arises from an offence to one's love for another that is essential for social life. Just as the first ingredient may be sensed as resulting from either an external or an internal threat, so too may the second. That is to say, the person who is loved, and whose safety is in jeopardy, may be either an actual external person or may be an image of oneself. In the former case one is afraid of losing someone one loves; in the latter one is afraid of losing one's self-esteem or
Thus,
self-respect. If the dreaded event takes place, in the former case one is left mourning his loss and in the latter one is left feeling guilty for what one has done or the image one has failed to live up to. In so far as a certain amount of self-esteem and a certain number of loving relationships are usually felt as
TAVISTOCK
CLINIC
essential to a life that is livable, at some point too great a loss of them is felt as a threat to life itselfThus it is that what, in mild form, is experienced as anguish for another or shame or guilt for oneself, in more violent form may turn into bitter self' hatred of such a kind that the self is in danger of being overwhelmed or annihilated. What starts as the sense of guilt that makes social life workable-' in that it insists both on respect for others and ofl respect for oneself?can end up as a suicidal de-
pression. Evidently, therefore,
a capacity for these two kinds of fear is needed if pitfalls are to be accurately anticipated and, when possible, avoided-" pitfalls in both actual bodily life and in emotional life. Without it, concern for others and for hoW others will see us cannot be exercised acutely enough to preserve the affectionate relationship5 that seem to be essential to healthy life. So the capacity to feel fearful is an essential feature of a personality that can learn from experience, that can develop by assimilating what is
lived through. Inevitably, in the course of development the personality, in its relative immaturity meets up with situations that are beyond its capacity for assimilation. Such situations are ex-
perienced as liable What, then, can itself? How
can
to overwhelm the personality' the personality do to preserve it avoid being overwhelmed? $ external one it can perhaps be
the danger is an avoided, or partially avoided, by taking evasive action. If the danger in fact arises from within the personality it can sometimes be imaginatively pro-
jected
outwards
on
to some feature of the environ'
ment which is then avoided as if it were the source
of the
danger. This is the mechanism of the comphobias in which the sufferer, though partly aware of the irrational nature of his dread, must yet avoid closed spaces, spiders, sharp knives of mon
whatever it is that has been endowed with the dangerous image and impulse. Another?and far more common?way of trying to deal with a threat from within the personality is to have nothing more to do with it, to banish it from what is recognised as the 'self', to cut o$ from what is acknowledged as 'me' that part of
the
personality
that is connected with the hatred
undoing, as he felt, began to feel great tenderness towards her. The inevitable let-downs he then experienced at the hands of this ordinary mortal were felt by him to be as painful and baffling as were his experiences with his mother; he was repression'. faced by a re-emergence of just that segment of exSuch banishment of parts of the personality perience he had consciously been at pains to avoid. from what is permitted in the arena of It was, however, for various reasons possible everyday nving is a ubiquitous mechanism of self-manage- for him, through the course of time, to forgive his ment, but it also leads to some degree of depletion wife for some of these injuries and to find that ?f the personality. The more fierce and tyrannical tender feelings were not only possible but even the banishment is, the more shorn the personality beneficial to his and his wife's life together. Though ^11 be of its at one time it had seemed he would have to grow richness. Everyone is more or less inhibited in this way, up in such a way as to exclude all relationships ut the inhibition can sometimes reach crippling that threatened to arouse his tender feelings?and Proportions?in so to live a markedly impoverished life?in the realm of social participation fact, ?r in the realm of imagination. The segments of through the tribulations of a marriage that both that are banished in this way are no partners ardently supported, he was able to regain onger available for everyday use and so lie around a banished segment of himself. lr* the This man was fortunate in many ways. He was unconscious recesses of the mind in their 0riginal archaic forms unmodified by subsequent fortunate in the wife he had managed to choose In addition to their not being available for himself, and in the fact that his fear of a recur?r everyday life?to add depth and colour to rence of the emotional bafflement he had experi^hat is being lived through?they are inclined to enced with his mother was not so great that he when least expected, to burst clumsily had had to banish the experience so fiercely and toto a life that is being conducted in quite a tyranically that it was beyond recall and thered|fferent style. fore beyond the possibility of subsequent assimilaSuch sudden intrusions can be intensely per- tion. P exing and frightening in themselves and lead to Events that lead through fear to the depletion sUch remarks as 'I of the personality in this way have been termed don't know what took hold of or 'He is not really himself today'. Less sudden 'traumatic'. Everyone's past is strewn with them, nd more but the permanence of their effects depends upon continuous intrusions are experienced as least two factors; first, the occasions that life at of the peculiarities personality .?at perversely obstruct the individual's conscious subsequently offers for them to be re-experienced, reconsidered and to some extent re-integrated (such such as in the man who hates domiwomen yet behaves in such a way as to occasions may be found in marriage, in psycho'nvite them to dominate him, or in the woman who therapy or in some other experience that provides ePlores uncouth sexuality yet contrives to get her- for a degree of emotional commitment). The etf second factor is the fierceness with which all remconstantly accosted or even raped. As an nants of the 'traumatic experience' have been example we may think of a man who, as child, found that his loving feelings for his mother banished from the conscious part of the perWays landed him in a most painful disappoint- sonality. This fierceness is usually felt to be erU and sense of confusion. Much of his subequally matched by the dread of its re-entry which e
