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Anxiety, Therapy, and Responsibility · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Curious Mind
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podcast. My name is Gabriel Ellis.
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The topic today is anxiety therapy and personal
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responsibility. To give you a little bit of a
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background, according to statistics, depending on which
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statistics you look at, about 9:00 to 15% of Europeans suffer
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from specific anxiety disorders, while around 5% are confronted
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with a generalized anxiety or existential fears at some point
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in their lives. So this is a quite significant
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number at any given time of people suffering from some form
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of anxiety. And this is actually not a big
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surprise because anxiety is one of the most fundamental
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experiences of being human. Whether it is the fear of a baby
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and it's utter helplessness, the fear of heights which is
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relatively trivial, or deeper, fears of what comes from within
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us, or existential fears of, for example, being alone or in an
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insignificant life. Anxieties are and have always
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been part of our existence since birth.
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The question is how we deal with them.
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At some point, most of us do reach a point when we have to
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find a new way of dealing with a anxieties of life, because
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otherwise we try to apply the old methods that we have picked
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up during our lifetime that we try to imitate and this becomes
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just exhausting. If it doesn't work, then more
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and more headspace, more and more cognitive energy is wasted
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on compensating from the anxieties that we can just
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cannot resolve in a satisfying way.
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Another way that people go about it, and especially today I feel
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that this is something that is has become quite popular, is to
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suppress anxieties. The consequence of that is that
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we become numb inside. We'll lose contact with
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ourselves and with our life. So the success of this strategy
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of suppression comes at a high cost and this is something that
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one of the most fundamental existential philosophers and
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psychologists, Flitrich Nietzsche, mentioned in this
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quote. From human all to human.
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Here goes the quote. If you have used your mind to
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master the excess of your emotions, your effects, you may
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end up transferring the excess to your mind and going wild in
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your thinking and desire to know what he means with.
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That is, when we have mastered kind of the irrational aspects
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of our emotions, which in our example is anxieties, it might
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lead to become excessive in our control.
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And when we have become excessive in our control, we
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have lost touch with being human itself, with the energy of being
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human, with our vitality, with our force to be alive.
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And this is something that people like Nietzsche have stood
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up in a quite distinct way against.
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Anxieties can be roughly divided into 3 categories.
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The first category is like I mentioned, specific fears such
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as phobias, and these can be often clearly defined and they
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can be overcome through targeted interventions, for example with
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behavioral therapy. The second category of anxieties
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is the fear of inner parts, the fear of myself, of parts of
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myself, and this requires more self responsibility, more
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sensitivity within myself. And the therapy is a trusted
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reflection. I have to use my mind as a
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sounding board, as a resonance, and this is much more subtle and
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more complex than just to get rid of specific phobias.
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And the third category is more existential fears, such as the
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fear of death, for example, or the fear of utter loneliness.
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And this effects our deepest self and it requires a high
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degree of reflection and of taking responsibility of myself
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for myself. The therapy on such a level is
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less characterized through an difference in kind of knowledge
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and expertise. A therapy on this existential
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level is much more characterized by being on the same level where
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the clients and the therapist support each other in equal
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reflection. Let me first describe the
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approaches to specific views for specific anxieties, such as the
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fear of heights, for example, or social anxiety.
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Like I mentioned, cognitive behavioral therapy can be quite
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effective. So for example, a person with a
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social anxiety who is gradually, through the therapy, encouraged
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to master social situations through exposure therapy.
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What is exposure therapy? It has two components.
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The first is that I expose myself to the circumstances that
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trigger the fear inside of me. For example, social situations,
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for example, to meet people on a casual basis, not knowing how I
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come off being concerned about the consequences of maybe saying
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saying something wrong or awkward.
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This is something that people with social anxieties often
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struggle with. So the first component here is I
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expose myself. I don't avoid.
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Avoidance, by the way, is always the counterpart, the little
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sibling of anxiety. And we always have to keep in
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mind that anxiety can appear through, it's kind of very
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palpable and noticeable effects of sweat and feeling light
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headed and you know, pulse going up and so on.
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But it can be also, it could show itself in the form of
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avoidance of situations like that.
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So the first component is I'm exposing myself to what makes me
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actually uncomfortable. But that is not enough because
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experience has shown that if I just endure the situations and I
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just push myself to go to social events, for example, to
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networking events, that I might just really likely to come out
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of those repeated exposures with little benefit.
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Why is that? It's because through the
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exposure I have avoided to allow the discomfort inside of me to
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cut up, come up. So for example, people tense
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their muscles, they hold their breath, they count the time,
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they imagine that they are well, or in worst case they drink
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alcohol or take other meds in order to as a crutch to pacify
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themselves. This does not really work
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because I have not done really exposed myself to those anxiety
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inducing circumstances. What is necessary is that I
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truly expose myself without any crutch, without tensing up,
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without hoping that it's soon over.
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When I do that, then the actual experience, it goes through the
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unconscious and the unconscious which was steering, which was
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creating the anxiety. The unconscious has to admit
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that it wasn't as bad as it thought.
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As long as I control, as long as I tense up, as long as I escape,
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in my mind, I imply to the unconscious that I only survived
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the situation because of the crutch, because of the meds,
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because of the alcohol. And so the unconscious can
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easily keep its attitude towards, for example, social
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situations that there are indeed frightening.
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Because if there weren't, why would have you escaped through
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meds and through alcohol and through tensing up?
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So again, what is necessary is exposure and then to relax into
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the experience and to allow the discomfort to come up, to
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plateau and then to go down by itself, proving that the
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consequences of the frightening events were not as severe as I
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thought or as the unconscious thought.
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Now, in the therapeutic context, the therapist who is guiding and
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instructing the client to go through these situations has a
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high level of responsibility for the situation.
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The client has to trust the expertise of the therapist and
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of course they have to take the responsibility of actually
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letting go in those particular moments, of actually exposing
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themselves. But just in comparison, there's
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a high reliance on the expertise and the competence of the
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therapy in these cases. Let's go to the second category
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of anxieties, which is the fear of my inside in these
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circumstances. These cases when I'm
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uncomfortable with what happens to me inside of me when I'm in
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certain situations, it's there's less emphasis on the
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circumstances. And this is the anxiety that
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comes up is more the result of a long developed habit, a habit
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for example, from childhood, but it doesn't have to be from
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childhood alone. Basically all important periods
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of life go through transitional periods and those and those
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transitional periods we are quite vulnerable.
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So going to school, for example, and opening up from the family
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situation to other kids, to the authority of teachers or to go
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through puberty. When we again, we leave the
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comfort that we have developed with the school situation, with
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the home situation. And now suddenly the peers are
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the authorities that judge whether I'm worthy or not.
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Or then when we leave school or when we leave university and we
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get our first jobs, there are new authorities that we are
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vulnerable against because they suddenly decide over our fate.
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So in all of those transitional periods, we might pick up habits
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because all of these circumstances, they trigger
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anxiety and discomfort within us naturally.
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And depending on how successful those strategies are, we might
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develop habits of, for example, attacking situations in a
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certain way or talking through it with skill, or withdrawing
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mentally and trying to become invisible.
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But these habits, they become their own thing within us,
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because we tend to apply them again and again and again in the
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future, and because we leave them untouched and we want them
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to continue to serve all purposes.
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They remain an alien aspect within ourselves.
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And this alien aspect will spawn feelings and its own discomforts
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over time. So this can then manifest with
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the years as anxieties that come from within us when we feel
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alien towards our own inner paths.
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So the metaphor here is that we are not masters in our own house
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and this can be very uncomfortable, especially I
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think in our day and age to deal with these situation with those
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feelings. Here in the therapeutic context,
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the expertise of the therapist certainly is helpful, but it
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requires also a high level of reflection, resonance and
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responsibility from the from the clients.
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Because they have to understand where exactly the discomfort is,
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to seek the inner discomfort. And again, to go through the
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stages of understanding and allowing it to be so that they
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can eventually integrate those alienated aspects within
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themselves into the big self, if you will, and to heal as a
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consequence. The third category of anxieties
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is existential fears. When it comes to such
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existential fears, like for example, the fear of
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meaninglessness, there are no hacks and quick solutions
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possible. Regardless of what, for example,
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self help literature or videos and so on might suggest to you,
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this level of anxiety goes to our core.
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We have to confront ourselves with aspects of our core being,
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with the fact that we are thrown into life.
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As, for example, philosophers like Heidegger emphasized, we're
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thrown into the circumstances without being asked.
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And because we are thrown into them and still have to live, the
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consequence philosophically is that we have to be aware and be
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responsible for the freedom that is giving to us.
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The philosopher Satra, here's a quote from him based on this
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being thrown into the world. He said man is condemned to
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freedom because we are thrown into the situation.
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We have to decide how we want to respond to this.
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This understanding has been also the basis for existential or
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logo therapy developed by Victor Funkel.
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And he based part of his approach on a quote again from
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Nietzsche, as obviously you've seen, he was this an existential
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philosopher. This quote is from Twilight of
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the Idols. And it goes like this.
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If you have your why of life, you get along with almost every
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how. What that means is that when we
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understand what our purpose in life is, then it mostly it takes
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care of most of the situations, of all the questions of how we
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want to deal with those situations in life, of what we
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should do. Because all of these answers,
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they spring from the fundamental answer of knowing my purpose in
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life. So all of those at existential
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approaches they advocate from for understanding who we are,
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what our purpose is, why we are leading our lives.
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And this will be the springing, the spring basically from which
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the answers to all life's questions are coming from.
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So, for example, if a person struggles with a fear of old age
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and frailty, they can begin to rethink their values and where
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the actual meaning of their life is.
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The emphasis here is on their life, because on such an
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existential level, we cannot take blueprints from other
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people. We cannot copy and paste what
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other people did in ancient times, for example, or Buddhism
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or whatever it is. It does not work because we have
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to go back to our core. Yes, our core partly is
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connected to the core of being human in general, but the
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solution that we have to find, the purpose that we have to find
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is so specifically us that we cannot entrust any other person
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or any other authority with dealing with this question.
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So because the risk here to on that fundamental existential
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level to go wrong would be so severe, we have to take the
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utmost responsibility for those answers, for understanding what
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the purpose of our lives is. Here are a few strategies for
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dealing with this existential level or existential fears. 1
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can be to read about those big issues.
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The idea here is not again to copy and paste or just to adopt
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adopt those solutions of other people, but to get inspired
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because this is so unnatural to be in this existential level.
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But it's important to remind myself of the questions that are
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post there. It's good to get some hints
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about how to think about those levels.
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What problems need to be solved there?
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What is the purpose of life in terms of what is the logic of
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thinking about the purpose of life?
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And this cues we do can get from literature.
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We can also get them from reading biographies of
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insightful people. Again, not to copy, but just to
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get an idea of what they dealt with.
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And we can be sure that when we read this, this might trigger
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our own process. So reading actively dealing with
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this topic can be quite a valuable approach to our own
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existential topic. A second strategy, a second
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approach to achieve this level is honest journaling, where I
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commit to verbalize topics, to ask myself the question what is
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really important to me to get into the mode.
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And the habit of either in my mind to ask myself these
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questions or to write them down will be a rich source of
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material that makes brings me back again and again to this
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existential level. And to make it more plausible
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and more likely that daily events will give me future cues
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in this puzzle piece to piece together and to live and embody
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the purpose that I have found over time.
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So journaling as a practical approach to achieve this
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existential level over time as a contribution for the puzzle
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pieces. The third aspect in this
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practice can be a contemplative practice.
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This can be classic meditation in the Eastern traditions, it
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can be Christian contemplations, or it can be contemplations
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about existential topics that I have picked up from philosophy.
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But then I look inside. I go inside myself on a, as we
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say, phenomenological level. What do I actually see?
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What do I actually find when I go inside myself?
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Where are the existential levels there?
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What am I thrown into? How does it feel to be me, which
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is a super rich source of material that will help me to
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build up a foundation for understanding who I am and what
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my purpose in life is. In this approach, I'm making
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friends with the finitude of life.
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With the end of life, I comes to come to terms with that.
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I perceive it inside myself, inside my mind.
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I contemplate over the frailty of my body, and these are pieces
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that come together then to a certainty that Shields me
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effectively from circumstances that I experience in daily life.
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On all of those 3 levels, therapy can be quite helpful, be
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it on a very pragmatic level where I learned to deal with
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specific phobias, be it in the inner parts work which can be
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psychodynamic depth psychology. It can be done in Gestalt
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psychology for example, or on this existential level.
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The deeper we go, the more responsibility we, the clients,
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have to take and the less we can, the less we should.
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Delegate our responsibility to so-called experts, to
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therapists, to guides and so forth.
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So keep that in mind and maybe this description that I have
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given you has given you some clues of how do you want to
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approach your topics. Are you taking enough
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responsibility for your experiences, for your approaches
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in life? And if not, what are the missing
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pieces? What are the missing elements
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that you want to address, for example, on a more existential
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level so that you do get the existential stability that helps
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you to face the life questions? In general, I am interested in
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helping and supporting my clients on this journey, be it
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with the expertise on a pragmatic level or as a
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resonance board on more deeper levels.
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In a parts work or existential work.
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You will find a description. You'll find a link in the
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description to a free session getting to know each other.
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Discovery call if you would like to work with me.
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Other than that, I would be happy if you leave, leave a
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comment under this video, under this episode, because I am
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interested about your experience, experiences.
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I am interested in how you have approached successfully and what
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you think is the next step in facing, in armouring yourself
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against the uncertainties of life and with which levels and
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puzzle pieces you want to do that.
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I hope to see you next time. All the best.