PSYCHOTHERAPY AND TERRORISM

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN TIMES OF TERRORISM: Recycling Anxiety and Dealing with Fear

Yaro Starak, Gestalt Therapist

“In my conception, the human fear of death is identical with the fear of not being able

 To live humanly, and the anxiety inherent in growth must be viewed in the same light”

Andras  Angyal

War, terrorism, suicide bombings and other traumas are filling the airwaves. From the Middle East to Asia and Africa, we watch the rhetoric and see the full blown crises on CNN. Australia is not immune from the fear and anxiety that emerges from this daily news. Anti-terrorist militia and security measures are being formed to detect, destroy or apprehend invaders to this land. In addition, more news emerges about AIDS, SARS and the Chicken Flu. Terrorist attacks on buses, airplanes and markets are creating an enormous anxiety and fear of death everywhere. Sudden death, as a result, has become a constant shadow in our lives.

The recent documentary, “Bowling for Columbine,” based on the American obsession with guns, received an Oscar. Soon after the movie, global news and media helped to create and sustain a sense of fear and anxiety all over the world. So in a world that is changing rapidly, we need to become more aware of how we respond to these external and internal phenomena. Can psychotherapy and particularly Gestalt Therapy help? Let’s have a closer look: What is the difference between fear and anxiety?

Both fear and anxiety are emotional reactions to real or perceived danger. In the case of fear, we experience clear physical reactions such as sweaty palms, rapid heart-beat, rapid breathing and so on. These physical reactions are usually in proportion to the danger facing us like fire, bombs falling, a drop in weather temperature, and theft. When we attempt to stop these feelings and try to repress them, we begin to experience an anxiety reaction and tend to defend against an imaginary future. Both fear and anxiety generate the same body/mind reactions but they are clearly different processes.

ANXIETUDE Excitement, growing! Not enough support GASP! Don’t breathe Anxiety! My old friend Ed. Smith Ph.D.

Anxiety may be defined as an overreaction to life’s dangers. It stays and keeps us in a state of vulnerability and victim-hood, or promotes the resurfacing of early trauma memories, creating a feeling of ‘danger’ again and again. Anxiety creates a sense of helplessness, feelings of fatigue, inadequacy, depression and neurotic behaviour. Some people report a sense of ‘free-floating’ anxiety; they do not know why they are so anxious all the time.

Many researchers state that anxiety is closer to depression than to fear. Fear, they say, is an emotion that emerges when the survival of the species requires us to generate energy to protect us from danger. Fear gets the adrenaline flowing thus giving us the necessary alertness and strength to defend ourselves from real or perceived dangers.

Anxiety and depression are considered avoidance mechanisms. We avoid dealing with a real issue at hand. Instead we fall into a sense of powerlessness and become victims of our own misperceptions. There is a difference between the ‘positive’ anxiety which teachers often call ‘healthy motivation’ and the stressful pressures which make us sick in body and mind. We must learn to find ways of dealing with such responses to life in order to stay healthy.

Dealing with anxiety.

“I used to view anxiety

Deserving reverence and piety

But now it only gets me sore

When it makes my life a dismal bore”

Henry Wolsat M.D.

What then is the Gestalt  or any other psychotherapist’s role in dealing with the current global situation ?

When Fritz Perls, lived and worked in Esalen, California (1966), he described one of the most obvious approaches in dealing with anxiety. His view of anxiety was holistic. He wrote that when a person experiences anxiety, there is always an accompanying physiological sensation as well as a psychological component. For example, an anxiety attack without breathing difficulties and quickening of the pulse or similar symptoms does not exist. Body and mind cooperate simultaneously and quickly to activate a response. Fritz suggested a series of breathing exercises that will bring us back from the anxious sensation and its resulting disorientation and become grounded in the present – now. He called this form of working with anxiety a way of ‘dealing with stage fright’.

Today however, the ever-present complex world events that are bombarding us with constant news of disasters 24 hours a day creates a bigger ‘stage’. This phenomenon has prompted a sense of chronic anxiety or even an addiction to anxiety. The constant constriction of muscles, lack of breath, and so on can become addictive reaction patterns to daily stress.

In our therapy practice we can often find the so called ‘tension junkies’. These are people who watch CNN every day thus maintaining their position of powerlessness, victim mentality or ‘poor me’ helplessness that can be interpreted as bordering on some sort of masochism. As early as 1985, Dr. Howard Halpern, in his article on anxiety, mentions this addictive phenomenon. He also says that people, who tend to worry too much, tend to ‘catastrophise’ their anxiety and find themselves constantly worrying about the uncontrollable events in their lives and stop being aware of the actual situation in the present moment as a result. Chronic worriers cannot stop worrying. If we suggest that they ‘stop worrying and be happy’, or keep breathing fully, they will not consider this helpful. They may even feel more anxious.

Anxiety often appears in response to messages that we give ourselves; meanings with which we frame certain past experiences and interpretations that we assign to them. Much of this is imaginary worrying and mostly unproductive. Such feelings create further secretions of adrenaline that promote physical and mental stress.

“I saw my  mother destroy herself with chronic anxiety developing Parkinson’s disease early in her life…She would live in perpetual worry and anxiety. My father and I would have a little verbal fight when I was a teenager and she would quake in her ‘fear’ that our relationship would be never repaired.”

Henry Grayson

In attempting to recover our ‘ground’ we need to develop some basic tools in dealing with such unproductive ways of being.

Some basic techniques

Gestalt therapists have developed a technique that does help; we state the obvious.

When a person expresses some sense of ‘fear or anxiety’ to me, I ask: “What are you afraid is going to happen? How is your fear useful to you at this moment?”

Then I explore in the here and now, the worst possible scenario of this expectation. I continue this exploration ‘ad nauseam’ until paradoxically the client becomes aware of the symptom and begins to self-regulate. This means the client begins to take full responsibility for the sensation he or she calls ‘anxiety’ and realises that this anxiety is only a personal reaction to events and not the events themselves.

Consider the following paradox:

“A manic-depressive dragon at the zoo

Was filled with anxiety for something to do

Alas it bored him, you know

To fretfully walk to and fro…

He reversed it, and walked fro and to…”

(Author unknown)

In my own experience with therapeutic metaphors, I find that the above poem is a good example of how we can deal with subtle messages our unconscious mind receives and then generates a repetitive cycle of boredom.

When I get bored I tend to get stuck with my current position or pattern of behaviour. By shifting my mental position – even subtly – I shift my action and release my flow of energy to resolve my issue.

Shifting my perspective (like the dragon in a zoo), my feelings begin to change and thus I am free to choose; either to continue with my anxiety or shift to another level of awareness. Having options gives me room to get ‘unstuck’.

As stated earlier, fear is a reaction to a real threat. We fear ‘something or someone’; for example fear of flying, fear of guns, fear of dogs, fear of groups, fear of  fighting with someone and so on…When the threat is over - so is our fear.

When we attempt to avoid feeling a specific and definite fear object or try to ‘get rid’ of the full experience, the emotion becomes suppressed and may develop into full blown or generalised anxiety. Recycling anxiety, then, is to transform it into its specific fear and experience it fully.

This is where the experiment technique in Gestalt therapy comes in very handy. In a safe group or therapeutic environment, the person re-creates the actual fearful situation and is supported in various ways to fully experience it. The outcome of this experiment is to achieve full power within ourselves and re-gain our full strength in dealing with the world.

“If violence can be understood as resulting from an obstructed ability to think creatively, then providing avenues for artistic expression can foster peace”

                                                      Tino Plank, artist 

Another popular technique is to transform the fearful experience into a loving experience by way of intensive meditation. This is how:

“Sit on a chair or in a comfortable place that you like. Fold your hands together on your lap; place the right hand over the left. Join both thumbs together. Close your eyes relax and breathe gently through your mouth only. Sit that way breathing through your mouth for about 40 minutes. Place your focus on your heart and feel the warmth in your chest area. Experience the love energy entering your chest cavity and filling your whole body. Do this every day until you no longer feel the fear or anxiety”

Still another way we can encourage or invite our clients to deal with anxiety and channel it into focussed fear is by way of an activity. We already know that sports such as bicycling, running and swimming are good for us. However what follows is a more ‘mindful’ active technique – it is called The Last Lecture. Zaleski (2003) writes about this in his article in Parabola Magazine. The Last Lecture tradition has been developed in many universities when a professor retires from his Chair. The professor stands on his podium for the last time and delivers his last lecture to a full house student body.

Last year I retired from teaching at the University of Queensland. I was asked to ‘say a few words’ to the planned gathering of staff and students. I began to feel anxious. What could I say? Do I speak about my academic achievements over the past 20 years? Do I examine the future and offer visions of a better life? Or do I simply stand there, smile and say ‘no-thing’ like a Zen Master?

Such inner reflections stimulated a range of feelings of anxiety – even panic. However, I suddenly became aware that this is actually my ‘Last Lecture’ and there is nothing to lose or gain by what I do or say. I can simply be who I am at the moment. Consequently all my anxiety and panic feelings just faded away. When the day of farewell came, I was full of joy and merriment.

Having examined some of the ‘tools’ in working with anxiety, I may ask a question to myself as a therapist: “What is my anxiety now? How does it translate into fear of something I have suppressed as ‘unfinished business’? What is the cost or consequence for finishing this ‘business’? Then with all my courage available, I make a decision either to finish or not to finish this ‘business’, fully taking responsibility for my decision and fully living with the consequences of either decision. Very often the fear of possible consequences is a major source of anxiety.

One of my own successful experiences in ‘managing’ anxiety since the 9/11 horror, was to join the Laughter Yoga Club. Every Saturday morning at 10:00 am, about 50 people gather in the local park and Susan, our facilitator, sounds a big Ho, Ho, Ho belly laugh to warm up the group. We then proceed to introduce ourselves through a series of laughing exercises and by making eye contact. After one hour of intensive laughing, everybody is feeling high and full of good cheer. My day is totally anxiety free.

Susan’s explanation of why we need to laugh more today is the following: “Scientific research on laughter links directly the laughing process to physical, mental emotional and spiritual benefits. Paying compliments and offering forgiveness are only two effective tools of sensible living that help to create harmonious relationships.”

 Perhaps the best way to find out ways of dealing with current global anxieties and fears is to ask others who have managed to deal with their life-threatening experiences. I wish to introduce here a small sample of how some people have done it in their lives and urge  readers to contact people in your world and ask the same. In times of crises, people tend to form common bonds and share survival skills. This has been happening as long as humanity has been on this planet.

One man’s story:

A man in my group said that he had a constant internal feeling of being anxious and fearful to express his masculinity openly. I quote:

“My own experience is that when men begin to talk about caring and nourishing, it sounds like we are like a woman and it is bad to be that way. This makes me both angry and sad. I have been supporting women all my life and fear that I may be labelled as a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy). I am not against women but with women. For a long time I felt that it is not a male thing to be doing. But until men find a way to talk to each other about caring and nurturing, it will never be a legitimate male activity. The uniqueness that men bring to the sharing of love among themselves and caring for others, will always feel like some sort of ‘being a good boy for mommy’

Oppression in men tends to be internal with external ‘expressions’ of either self harm of harm to others. This is the basis for the fear men have about their sexuality, identity and purpose.”

Fear of letting go

The thought of risking my relationship with G. was tightening my gut, closing my feelers, so I didn’t even notice the ocean and the sky ……….

“You do not have to leave her” M. said. “You should do whatever feels right in your deepest heart. Feel deep as consciousness, open as water, now, and feel how to live with a wide-open heart. Feel how to live as love without bondage. Listen to your heart through your fear, and be willing to take the next step without the slightest idea of what will happen when you do. Live through your deepest integrity of love, offering your entire life to love, opening moment by moment, without protecting your heart in traps of safety. This freedom is the ultimate discipline, my friend.”

D. Deida “Wild Nights”

Fear of Emotions

“For many years I worked on emotions on my own. As an untrained empath, the amount of emotions I felt was pretty terrifying to me. There seemed nothing I could do to stop it. So I decided to finally stop fighting my emotions and see what else I could do. Discovering the four element view point where the Earth is the body, air is the intellect, fire is the spirit and water is the emotions – was a major piece of understanding of how emotions fit into the psyche and what they bring with them…”

Inteview with Kirstin Miller March 2002.

Expressive Arts for Peace

“Denial is our biggest personal and global enemy. Awareness is its antithesis. To deny our grief and suffering over a personal tragedy or over the needless human tragedies of starvation, pollution and wars, puts a lid on all our feelings. This leads to lethargy, depression, and apathy. To become aware, on the other hand, leads us into the fiery waters of emotions that need to be appropriately channelled into creative energy…”

Natalie Rogers, AHP Perspective, Feb/Mar. 2004.

These examples give us only a small range of ways others deal with their anxiety and fears. A male group member has internal feelings about his manhood, a therapist has become aware of his own needs to explore himself in supervision and a youth is seeking a deeper relationship and learning about freedom.

So, let us be response-able to follow a path; whether meditation, breath, action, laughter, experiment or our ‘last lecture’, the choice is ours alone. These are only tools to achieve the one goal; the goal to have the courage and power to live life in this moment and feeling in peace right now.

References:

1. Gryason, H.  “Recycling anxiety Into Fear” in “VOICES” Winter, 1985.
2.  Clarkson P & J. Mackewn, “Fritz Perls” Sage Pub. 1993.
3. Deida, D. “ Wild Nights – Conversations with Mykonos” Plexus, 2000.
4. Plank, Tino “AHP Perspective” Feb/March 2004.
5. Miller, Kirstin Interview  in: “Psychic Reader” magazine, March, 2002.
6. Halpern, H. in “VOICES” Winter 1985
7. Rogers, Natalie “AHP Perspective”, Feb/Mar. 2004.
8. Zaleski,  P. “The Last Lecture” in “PARABOLA” Fall, 2003.

“Take the courage to cut the cord – and be free!”

Zorba the Greek.