Excitement, anxiety, concern, depression… These experiences can accompany us every second. After all, human life is a series of all sorts of dangers. We are exposed to it when we leave the house, go to work, to the store, cross the road, go in the car… We are vulnerable and vulnerable when we build relationships with others. As we approach them, we become more and more at risk.
It is about what is around – a situation of risk that there is some danger around (moral or physical) and tells us our anxiety. We learn about this feeling when we notice the increase or discontinuity of our breathing, changes in the rhythm of the heartbeat, the feeling of tension in the chest, in the body, in the legs, hands.
Anxiety and anxiety is one of the most unbearable experiences. After all, this feeling has no clear addressing. It is diffuse, blurred, and therefore difficult to avoid what causes it.
Once we find the cause, the addressing of the alarm, it will immediately cease to be all-encompassing and have such power over us. After all, then we can build a plan to calm ourselves by dealing directly with the causative agent of this experience.
For example, when we realize that there is a crawling snake or an evil dog, and this is most likely the cause of anxiety. We are unable to protect themselves, for example, ran to the side. Then the alarm will be situational, and will subside as soon as the danger has passed or become less likely.
But there is another kind of anxiety – personal. This is an experience that is always with us – as a fuse in the power supply. It increases depending on the situation, but never completely disappears.
Between life and death
There are three types of personal anxiety.
The first type is existential anxiety or the anxiety of being.
This is the feeling of anxiety that is “built” into us and every moment reminds us that life is finite and death is inevitable. It’s an anxiety that regulates our self-preservation instinct, and behind it is our basic need for safety and comfort.
Existential anxiety intensifies every time we find ourselves in a new and unfamiliar place. We change the place of residence, kindergarten or school, work. When we meet strangers…
Everything unfamiliar and unidentified provokes an increase in the degree of anxiety of being in order to mobilize our internal energy resources for orientation in space, for understanding what is a threat to us and what is not.
It is the difficulties in experiencing and maintaining existential anxiety that provoke people to so-called pseudo-suicidal behavior – games on the border of life and death: speed riding, skydiving, diving, etc.
Deliberate exposure to risk creates the illusion of victory over the personal anxiety of being and belief in one’s own immortality. And ultimately – devalues the very life.
Overcoming the anxiety of being is a certain skill of living with it and recognizing that life is finite and thus valuable. That our options are limited. What is important to take care of yourself – providing your own safety, focusing and exploring new and unknown.
It is impossible to completely calm the anxiety of being. Without it we would not be able to survive. It is important to learn to live with it, recognizing its nature and not contesting the existence of this experience.
The second type of alarm is separation. This is the anxiety associated with the appearance of another person. Anxiety of approaching and distancing in a relationship.
The nature of this experience is laid in early childhood and is associated with the relationship with the first important object for us – the mother.
In adulthood, this anxiety regulates our contacts with other people when we worry about losing their location. It is separation anxiety that is the basis of all dependencies, and the strengthening of this type of anxiety often provokes depression and psychosomatic diseases.
Overcoming separation anxiety is the achievement of maturity and well-formed personal boundaries. The ability to endure the loneliness and rejection of others without falling apart or collapsing.
In the course of personal therapy, we often deal with this type of anxiety, supporting the formation of a Mature identity of an adult who is able to take responsibility for his own life.
Depreciation alert
The third type of personal anxiety is Oedipal anxiety or devaluation anxiety. Each of us needs a sense of self-worth for others and fears its loss. It is the anxiety of devaluation that motivates people to achieve social success – to get a prestigious job, good income, to acquire status in society, to establish ties. Oedipal anxiety is actualized at the stage of growing up, when there is competition between the child and the parental figures and fear of punishment from significant adults. If the passage of this period is due to injury, the adult will experience a constant need to prove their importance to others.
The overshooting of the degree of anxiety of depreciation leads to a constant race for success, a continuous increase in the reasons for confirming their own importance, which will always be insufficient for saturation and relaxation.
Therapy of anxious clients
Psychotherapy, of course, is aimed at reducing the experience of off-scale anxiety, support in solving internal conflicts of the individual, help fight depression. Any kind of hard-to-bear anxiety is a marker that tells us that the adaptation of the body to real life is broken, that a person needs a resource and the ability to effectively build their own security.
Depending on which type of client’s concern is dominant, the strategy of therapeutic work is built. In any case, it is a support in the awareness of those experiences that are behind the anxiety and more accurately mark the internal mental processes.
The expansion and deepening of customer awareness in different areas of his life forms the skill of recognizing anxiety, determining its addressing, as well as the search for effective ways to meet the needs that are behind this experience.