Tag: English

Why a pathological fear persists

When we suffer from an alteration of fear, it automatically appears when faced with situations related to the fact that we fear.

An usual behavior is usually to try to avoid situations in which our emotional discomfort appears (physical and / or cognitive). For example, if a person talks about flying in a conversation, the person who is afraid of flying does not participate, if we find ourselves bad in a restaurant or in the subway … we go home… 

This behavior reduces fear very quickly. However, in the medium term, the avoidance is bad, because we are learning that not doing what we are afraid of eliminates feeling the fear. However, it does not make fear to be resolved once and for all.

In addition, we also learn what is good to avoid in advance. That is, the more things related to the fact that we fear we can avoid, the better. Since that way I will have less fear. However, fear is usually widespread and generalized. Every time we fear more things; Maybe initially you were only afraid of the subway, but now you have developed fear the moment you leave home, travel… 

In conclusion, Avoidance, Sensitization and Generalization explain why the emotional disorders of fear do not usually disappear alone or without a change in the behaviors that a person performs to manage their fear.

How we feel emotions

We all feel, experience and express the emotions in different ways. Let’s see what is the triple answer channel of emotions:

If we imagine a television with three channels, the first way in which we feel is our body, and it is what in psychology we call Physiological Channel: palpitations, abdominal discomfort, headache, tremors, excessive sweating, etc, are examples of how we feel the emotions in our body.

A second channel is our behavior, Motor Channel: block us out of anguish, cry, be in bad humor, avoid or flee from determined situations are another way of fear.

In third place, but not less important, are our thoughts, Cognitive Channel. In this channel, we tend to anticipate the worst, we stay just with the negative part of the situation, for example, having an accident… 

These three channels, unlike what can happen in a television, are perceived at the same time. That is to say, when we feel an emotion is like we are seeing the three channels at the same time. Imagine that you are watching a movie, a documentary and a tennis match at the same time and on the same television… Is because of that that sometimes, it is difficult to understand what is happening to us.

How to resolve emotional problems

To solve an emotional disorder you will learn how to break the Association that has been created between the situation or conditioned situations (getting away from home, going by subway, by car, etc) and fear (physical sensations and unpleasant thoughts). 

Psychotherapy will help you to train and perform a series of learning that will allow you to break that association: Through the exposure technique, you will face progressively, situations related to your fears, which will help you to break down and reduce the intensity of the association between your fear and those situations. 

Learning how to use your breath can also be helpful in reducing the feelings of discomfort that appear when you have fear. 

Finally, learning to detect negative thoughts and change them to more real and functional ones will help you in your cognitive discomfort. 

With training and these lessons you can solve your fear. Cheer up!

Exposure Hierarchy   

Let’s use the example of fear of dogs: 

• First, list the situations that cause you discomfort. Remember that the list should include concrete and varied facts.

• Once you have the list made, score on a scale of 0 to 100 the two situations on the list that lesser and greater discomfort provokes to you. Do not worry if you doubt or make any mistake, make changes as often as necessary and score all the other situations, one by one, depending on the subjective degree of discomfort that they generate to you.

• Finally, sort the list according to the score that you have assigned to each of its elements (from minor to major discomfort or score). 

Congratulations, you already have your exposure hierarchy ready!

Definition of emotions

We have 6 basic emotions: the surprise, the happiness, the disgust, the wrath, the sadness and the fear. Like the fingers of a hand, they help us in different aspects in our life: they prepare us, activating different mechanisms in our organism; they motive us, giving us energy, to get closer or away of determined situations; and finally they help us relate with other people and beings (animals, plants…) therefore, our emotions are adaptive and help us in a lot of aspects of our life.

Like other elements of our body, the emotions can be “hurt”. IJust like we can get hit, make us a fissure, a sprain, a fracture in our hand…, on occasions our emotions can be malfunctioning. Then we talk about emotional disorders, that is to say, a temporal alteration of some or several of your emotions affects you in your daily life.

We professionals in mental health know and count with tools, just like a doctor uses an ointment, a bandage, a temporary immobilization of the hand if it’s hurt, that will help you solve your emotional problems. One of these tools is virtual reality.

Surrounded by pigeons

In this environment the patient represents standing, surrounded by children who play and scamper around a large number of pigeons, which are eating and flying. At one point, he bends down and throws food at the pigeons, extends his hand and eats from his palm, so at this moment the level of difficulty to the exhibition will be increased. 

Duration: 4’45”
Difficulty: Medium

[ DISCLAIMER: This document has been automatically translated using Google Translate. ]

Rottweiler dog

In this environment one of the most commonly feared breeds by people with a dog phobia appears, since they are traditionally considered dangerous. First, the owner of the dog makes him sit, then he gets up, lets himself be petted and goes from one side to the other. At some point he runs to the patient and jumps up friendly. The dog is caressed all the time by the avatar and approaches him. It is barking throughout the video.

Duration: 3’31”
Difficulty: High

[ DISCLAIMER: This document has been automatically translated using Google Translate. ]

Calm dog

In this environment a dog appears walking. He is very calm and allows himself to be stroked by a foreground hand, as if it were the patient’s.

Duration: 48”
Difficulty: Low

[ DISCLAIMER: This document has been automatically translated using Google Translate. ]