This time, I decided to talk about the topic of fear of a good psychologist Svetlana Tovkach instead of writing a story about chronophobia. This presentation of the material will be more useful to you.
Time…time…time… In this dynamic and changing world time is one of the main values ...
“Don’t lose your time…” “Don’t go for a dream, don’t lose your time ...” “Time is money” “You will lose time and that’s all…” “Why do you want to get divorced, you have lived together so many years...” “You are already 30 ... 40 ... 50 ... years”. "At your age .." "Catch the moment ..."
You run headlong, trying to meet the deadlines, set by someone for no apparent reason, not noticing life itself... And suddenly something happens that makes you stop ... An event that you did not plan, that fits you into the framework that you didn’t want or didn’t think it would be so.
The life situation comes into conflict with beliefs that have been absorbed almost with mother's
milk.
And there arises some fear, what should I do next ...?
In modern world, world of anxiety, panic and fear (primarily social) people are afraid of time passage or chronophobia. The second name is “prison neurosis”, which was first identified in prisoners who fear long-term imprisonment. What is a "neurosis"? Neurosis is a mental impairment, without losing the realistic picture of the world, which has certain clinical phenomena and can be of several types. Psychologically, a neurosis appears when a person has a conflict of choice, namely, the difficulty of making a choice or lack of choice as such
(in situations of danger to life, for example).
Now chronophobia has acquired a many new presentations, because of characteristics and variability of society, shift in life values and orientations towards consumerism, pursuit of social benefits. It must be remembered that emotions of fear and anxiety are important basic emotions in the context of human survival as a biological object. However, emotions of anxiety and fear arise even in cases that do not have any life threat. For example, among schoolchildren waiting for an important exam or choosing an educational institution, among business people, actors,
young mothers who are previously socially active, and then forced to be in the "four
walls" with the child.
The high rhythm of life... constant stresses... So little time to just live, say “stop” and look around. And at some moment the state of the human body and psyche are so exhausted that there are disturbances, which are like to tell the person to “stop and think ... Take a break".
Undoubtedly, any phobia is the imposition of personality traits on the current situation, the values of the person and society as whole, existential questions. Based on this, we can say that obsessive fears, including fear of time passage, can arise against the background of:
- traumatic events, both of individual importance (childhood trauma, etc.), and as a result of situations dangerous to life of any person (violence, catastrophe, war);
- personality traits (character, temperament, personality orientation, presence of pointed character traits). Obsessive fears mainly affect anxious individuals. High personal anxiety implies the presence of biological characteristics of nervous system, temperament, in combination with certain character traits (for example, a tendency to catastrophize events, anxious suspiciousness, infantility), life experience, and upbringing.
- fears imposed by society under the influence of propaganda, not only real wars, natural disasters, globalization, etc., but also rumors about it.
- undoubtedly, the state of a person’s physical health, lifestyle, also affect the occurrence of high anxiety and fears.
What to do?
• Learn awareness, responsibility for one’s life, critical thinking, something that requires, if necessary, psycho-correction of a person.
• Learn to understand and accept yourself, your emotions, ability to manage stress, self-regulation skills, and concern for physical health.
• Be the master of your fear “I control my fear, I am not in control of my fear”
• Learn to rationalize and subjectivize fear, obsessive thoughts. For example, "People
under 30 must reach...". Ask yourself the question “How many people directly do I know who achieved this at 30, if so, how did they achieve it”?
• Break the stages of life in which you have to wait into sub-stages. The more sub-stages, the more visible the result.
• Praise yourself for every positive result; a negative result needs to be rethought in
order to see a positive experience for you.
Metaphorically, life is a river along which we sail, building a boat based on our desires, needs and possibilities. When we meet a whirlpool or a waterfall on our way and the boat can break, we have several options: stay on the wreckage or build a new boat and sail on...
And finally, a few techniques to overcome obsessive fears:
1. Do not forget that fear is an emotion of the survival of a biological object. In this regard, it is worth asking yourself, “What if ...?”, “What dangerous does this or that situation, or thought about something give me as for a biological object?”
2. Do one of the techniques for going through fears, for example:
- draw your fear;
- what feelings your drawing evokes;
- where your fear is reflected (in the body);
- ask yourself questions: what the fear shown in the picture does; why and for what he does it; what he gets when he does this; what needs to be done so that he stops doing this forever;
- draw a new positive picture;
- ask yourself questions: how my emotions and feelings have changed, looking at a new picture;
- write a story about this transformation.
3. If the fear is insurmountable, make the technique of "grounding", feel "here and now":
Technique 5-4-3-2-1
Name 5 items you see;
Name 4 sounds you hear;
Name 3 sensations in the body;
Name 2 feelings that you feel;
Name 1 smell.
Let your thoughts be peaceful and calm!
Yours faithfully
Your psychologist Svetlana Tovkach