Counterphobic attitude

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In psychology, a counterphobic attitude is a response to anxiety that, instead of fleeing the source of fear in the manner of a phobia, actively seeks it out, in the hope of overcoming the original anxiousness. [1]

Contents

Contrary to the avoidant personality disorder, the counterphobic represents the less usual, but not totally uncommon, response of seeking out what is feared. [2] Codependents may fall into a subcategory of this group, hiding their fears of attachment in over-dependency. [3]

Action

Dare-devil activities are often undertaken in a counterphobic spirit, as a denial of the fears attached to them, which may be only partially successful. [4] Acting out in general may have a counterphobic source, [5] reflecting a false self over-concerned with compulsive doing to preserve a sense of power and control. [6]

Sex is a key area for counterphobic activity, sometimes powering hypersexuality in people who are actually afraid of the objects they believe they love. [7] Adolescents, fearing sex play, may jump over to a kind of spurious full sexuality; [8] adults may overvalue sex to cover an unconscious fear of the harm it may do. [9] Such a counterphobic approach may indeed be socially celebrated [10] in a postmodern vision of sex as gymnastic performance or hygiene, [11] fuelled by what Ken Wilber described as "an exuberant and fearless shallowness". [12]

Traffic accidents have been linked to a counterphobic, manic attitude in the driver. [13]

Language

Julia Kristeva considered that language could be used by the developing child as a counterphobic object, [14] [ clarification needed ] protecting against anxiety and loss. [15]

Ego psychology points out that through the ambiguities of language, the concrete meanings of words may break down the counterphobic attitude and return the child to a state of fear. [16]

Freud

Didier Anzieu saw Freud's theorisation of psychoanalysis as a counterphobic defence against anxiety through intellectualisation: permanently ruminating on the instinctive, emotional world that was the actual object of fear. [17]

Wilhelm Fliess has been seen as playing the role of counterphobic object for Freud during the period of the latter's self-analysis. [18]

Therapy

Otto Fenichel considered that undoing systematised counterphobic defences was only a first step in therapy, needing to be followed by analysis of the original anxiety itself. [19] He also considered that psychological trauma could break down counterphobic defences, with results that "may be very painful for the patient; they are, from a therapeutic point of view, favorable". [20]

David Rapaport emphasised the need for caution and extreme slowness in analyzing counterphobic defences. [21]

Cultural examples

The attraction of horror movies has been seen to lie in a counterphobic impulse. [22]

Many actors often have a shy personality when off-camera, released counterphobically in conditions of performance. [23]

The Batman comics and movies often take Bruce Wayne's fear of bats as a central part of his origin story.

Sick , the documentary on performance artist Bob Flanagan, discusses the counterphobic attitude of Flanagan, who sought to escape the chronic pain of his cystic fibrosis by engaging in extreme acts of masochism.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Neurosis is a term mainly used today by followers of Freudian thinking to describe mental disorders caused by past anxiety, often that has been repressed. In recent history, the term has been used to refer to anxiety-related conditions more generally.

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Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as a defense mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it." According to psychoanalytic theory, repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person.

In psychology, intellectualization (intellectualisation) is a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling. It involves emotionally removing one's self from a stressful event. Intellectualization may accompany, but is different from, rationalization, the pseudo-rational justification of irrational acts.

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References

  1. ↑ Otto Fenichel (1946). The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. Routledge. pp. 480–481. ISBN   9780203981580.
  2. ↑ Martin Kantor (2010). The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 30. ISBN   978-0313377525.
  3. ↑ Martin Kantor (2010). The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 36. ISBN   978-0313377525.
  4. ↑ Salman Akhtar (2009). Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Karnac. p. 60. ISBN   978-1855758605.
  5. ↑ Judy Cooper (2011). Speak of Me as I Am:The Life and Work of Masud Khan. Taylor & Francis. p. 66. ISBN   9780367327064.
  6. ↑ Rosalind Minsky (1996). Psychoanalysis and Gender:An Introductory Reader. Psychology Press. p. 122. ISBN   978-0415092210.
  7. ↑ Otto Fenichel (1946). The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. Routledge. p. 516. ISBN   9780203981580.
  8. ↑ D. W. Winnicott (1973). The Child, the Family, and the Outside World. Penguin Books. p. 218. ISBN   978-0140136586.
  9. ↑ Segal, Julia (August 10, 2004). Melanie Klein (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 46. ASIN   B00KRENZU6. ISBN   978-0761943013.
  10. ↑ Lesley Caldwell, ed. (2010). Sex and Sexuality:Winnicottian Perspectives. Karnac Books for the Squiggle Foundation. p. 116. ISBN   9781855759091.
  11. ↑ Elisabeth Roudinesco (2008). Philosophy in Turbulent Times. Columbia University Press. p. xi. ISBN   9780231143004.
  12. ↑ Ken Wilber (2000). Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Shambhala. p. 7. ISBN   978-1570627446.
  13. ↑ Bartley, Graham P. (2008). Traffic Accidents. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. p. 166. ISBN   9781604564266.
  14. ↑ Julia Kristeva (1982). Powers of Horror. Columbia University Press. p. 41. ISBN   978-0231053471.
  15. ↑ Adam Phillips (1994). On Flirtation. Harvard University Press. pp. 82–83. ISBN   9780674634404.
  16. ↑ Fraiberg, Selma H. (1987). The Magic Years. pp. 123–125. ISBN   9780684825502. LCCN   59006073.
  17. ↑ Anzieu, Didier (1986). Freud's Self-Analysis. pp. 182, 577–581. ISBN   9780701204464.
  18. ↑ Flem, Lydia (2003). Freud the Man. Other Press. p. 59. ISBN   978-1590517338.
  19. ↑ Otto Fenichel (1946). The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. Routledge. p. 485. ISBN   9780203981580.
  20. ↑ Otto Fenichel (1946). The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. Routledge. pp. 549–553. ISBN   9780203981580.
  21. ↑ Rapaport, David. "The Autonomy of the Ego". In Morris, Glen T. (ed.). Dimensions of Psychology. p. 14.
  22. ↑ Newman, Robert (1993). Transgressions of Reading. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 63. ISBN   0822312808. LCCN   92013546.
  23. ↑ Martin Kantor (2010). The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 62. ISBN   978-0313377525.

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