SENTIENT TIMES Feb/Mar 2002

Fearful Feelings

Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP

Perhaps it’s appropriate in these times to turn toward a topic about which we may all be apprehensive: fear. In fact, the feeling of fear is so primal that some teachers put it in a separate class as something to be gotten rid of. In previous columns I have dealt with two other feelings or states, namely anger and blame, which also have come under scrutiny, and which are regarded as “bad.” Although a teacher would use a more sophisticated label than “bad,” quite often these approaches only thinly disguise their critical and judgmental attitudes to such “problem” feelings.

A feeling in and of itself can never be bad or inappropriate. What we are given feelings for is to help us mediate between our world and our internal needs and desires. The clearest example of how feelings should be handled is between an infant and a competent caretaker. Repeated consistent pairing of infant’s feelings with caretaker’s appropriate responses result in a gradual internalization of this competent caretaker, so that in adulthood we are really an amalgam of our child self and parent self.

In early infancy, the child cannot differentiate with the sound of her crying what the feeling is that she is conveying with her sound. It is up to the caretaker to figure out whether it’s about hunger, coldness, or a wet nappy; or emotional needs such as the need to be comforted in sadness, fear, or anger. And if there are emotional needs, an attempt must be made to understand what the infant is angry about, or sad about. When the caretaker’s understanding of the meaning of the infant’s cry adequately matches the meaning intended by the child, there is a shift in energy which both parties to the transaction can feel, because the purpose of the feeling has been fulfilled and the infant’s body can return to homeostasis—or a nap—to process the preceding events!

Through this slow sequence of events, the child gradually varies her communi-cative noises to match her internal states, and, eventually, learns to use words to describe her feelings. When parental response is inadequate, lacking, or outright hostile, the infant forms an adaptive, protective block to her feelings. This is called a counterpulsation. Quite often when someone wants to get rid of a feeling, what they are feeling isn’t a pure feeling at all but a combination of the pulsatory wave of a feeling and the counterpulsation. This disruption in the natural flow of feeling is what is causing the pain, not the feeling itself. I have found, and clients have agreed with my observation, that when a feeling is fully surrendered to, and the blocks have been overcome, no matter the deepest grief, rage or terror, these feelings themselves are not painful. This presupposes that what the feeling is about has passed into history: the soggy diaper has been changed, the baby has been fed, the frightening noise has stopped etc. Mourning over the loss of a loved one or the giving up of a lifelong habit or compulsion will have episodes of wave-like feelings, but, in a sense, the trigger for the feeling persists over time, and so there may seem to be a backdrop of a certain mood. Otherwise, a good way to tell if you’re feeling a feeling, or rather a blocked feeling, is if your feeling lasts longer than three minutes. This was Eric Berne’s rather tongue-in-cheek way of differentiating the two: anything longer than three minutes and you’re stuck in an attitude, not a feeling!

This is where the confusion sometimes exists between attitudes and feelings. Often it is clear that our feelings are heavily influenced by our thoughts: if we perceive a threat, we will feel frightened. I couldn’t help but feel fear and a lot of other feelings at repeatedly viewing the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11th, images which were replayed over and over again during that week on the major networks. The knowledge that these were deliberate airplane crashes produced a different set of feelings than if they’d been accidents. It is obvious, though, that our feelings about automobile travel would be vastly different if the networks took the trouble to repeatedly show fatal traffic “accidents” once every month (40,000 auto deaths per annum, about 3,000 dealths at WTC), ran stories about how tire and auto manufacturers destroyed our safer public transit systems, and invited experts to share their views that the majority of accidents are covert suicides—in other words, deliberate. (As a therapist in America, I have many clinical illustrations of people’s suicidal urges in cars. Once a client makes a commitment to never kill or harm themselves “accidentally” or on purpose, they find themselves automatically driving slower, buckling up, and, if alcoholic, finally establishing stable sobriety.)

There is a simple way to release fear. Start breathing chaotically for a few seconds, then pause. Repeat two to three more times, but on the last one let the chaos get greater and greater, involve your whole body, including your voice. Let your voice get louder and louder and, if you’ve put enough energy into it, you might break through into a high-pitched scream. If that happens, you will feel the delicious feeling of finally surrendering to your fear, and, as the fear crests and breaks like a wave, gradually you will find that your expression gets quieter and you calm down. When I first did this in a therapist’s office, some twenty years ago, I still vividly remember that I felt about forty pounds lighter as I got up from the mat.

One point Alexander Lowen (the cofounder of Bioenergetics) makes, is that we can block our fear by tightening up at the occiput (the base of the skull), and by making a grimacing smile. His solution was to aid a patient by lifting up his fingers at the occiput while simultaneously applying pressure with his thumbs on either side of the nose. Having made contact with the block in this fashion, and having prepared the way with deep breathing and vocalizing, he could facilitate the release of the scream.

If making very loud sounds isn’t practical for you, use the power of imagination, which has been shown to be sometimes more powerful than the actual doing in producing results. If you’ve been witness to a traumatic event, allow yourself to drift back in time to that former event, as though you are a safe, kindly parent to the self you were back then. Allow yourself to be a witness to your frightened self as though it were another person; then rewrite history: instead of witnessing yourself as you acted then, encourage this other person (the you that has just witnessed the traumatic event) to scream out all the fear. In your imagination hear your sounds and see yourself scream. When you see your former self looking relieved, pause a moment and switch roles so that now you hear and feel all the sensations of screaming, as if you actually were screaming. Continue until you feel the calming sensations, as you would after a good cry.

Our feelings are more complex than I have been making them appear here, so in these processes I have outlined, by all means let other feelings surface into consciousness and allow them their expression. After all, in these examples to do with fear, you might uncover rage, and then move back to fear, and then cry in relief because you no longer have to bear the burden of carrying feelings that are blocked. I wish you luck with your fear and that you develop a better understanding and deep appreciation for all your feelings.

Peter Moore graduated from Oxford University, and, since 1980, has pursued his interest in healing. Included with his study of a variety of modalities is certification and postgraduate training with Siegmar Gerken Ph.D., and John Pierrakos M.D., the founder of Core Energetics, an approach which attempts to unify the personality on the levels of body, feelings, mind, will, and spirit. Peter is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a practice in Eureka, CA, and can be reached at (707) 442-7228.

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