Fear is like a guard dog

Fear is like a guard dog. It looks after its owner by default. It can be trained if it is too watchful. According to research in cognitive psychology, anxiety is one of the six basic emotions that can be observed across cultures worldwide: Fear, Anger, Sadness, Joy, Surprise and Disgust. Researched by American Professor of Psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky: sonjalyubomirsky.comwho most recently has been researching happiness in particular. The topic of emotions was really interesting when I was taught Cognitive Therapy by Psychologist Irene Oestrich and Psychologist Lennart Holm down at Psychiatric Center Sct. Hans Psychiatric Center.

Emotions are basically an innate quality and an important part of being human. They are natural, they are a preparedness that we all have and may need to experience. Partly to be able to survive basic situations such as danger and partly to be able to function together with other people.

Anxiety is important as a protective factor that ensures survival against a perceived danger. It can be very good and useful if you are facing a real danger that you need to avoid. In the psychodynamic tradition, Real Anxiety is when you are justifiably afraid of a real danger, such as a high cliff or a wild animal.

Part of the problem with anxiety is that interpreting objectively harmless situations as dangerous can be difficult and inhibiting. I've worked with people who were terrified of finding banana peels or dog shit in the street and therefore couldn't go out for fear of falling or contracting dangerous diseases. As well as people who were terrified of throwing out important papers. As a result, they could not go out and their house was completely filled with mail, household papers and magazines for several days.Years. Important mail could get stuck on completely unimportant things like a used tea letter, for example.

The good news here is that anxiety can be trained to become less hypersensitive, more realistic. Just like a guard dog can learn that it doesn't have to react to even the slightest sound. The big tool from cognitive psychology in relation to anxiety is Exposure. You can read more about exposure in the Methods section of my website. You can get used to a situation and at the same time you can talk to a psychologist about it, so you can also relate to the experiences you have in the situation. That way you can approach the situationbased on e.g. Cognitive Psychology, which divides into four aspects: Behavior, Body, Thoughts and Emotions. Better known as the Cognitive Square or Diamond.

According to cognitive psychology and Lyubomirsky, emotions can be described in one word. If you embark on a longer explanation of what you experience, you often talk about thoughts. Emotions can be described in one word, based on the six basic emotions mentioned above. It can be a combination of them, but again, you can often find one word to describe your emotions.

This post is about anxiety. In conclusion, the good news is that anxiety can be reduced, become more realistic and you can train your preparedness.

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to discuss any of these issues further.