Counterphobic attitude

Counterphobic attitude

A counterphobic attitude is a response to anxiety in which, instead of fleeing from the source of fear in the manner of a phobia, you actively seek it out, hoping to overcome the original anxiety.

Contrary to avoidant personality disorder, counterphobic represents the less usual, but not totally strange, response to seeking what is feared: codependents may fall into a subcategory of this group, hiding their attachment fears in overdependence.

Summary

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1 Action
2 Sex, key area for counterphobic activity
3 Language
4 Freud
5 Therapy
6 Cultural examples
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 Sources

Action

Reckless activities are often carried out by a counterphobic spirit, as a denial of the fears involved in them, and can only be partially successful. Acting in general may have a counterphobic source, reflecting a false self preoccupied with doing compulsive to preserve a feeling of power and control.

Sex, key area for counterphobic activity

Sex is a key area for counterphobic activity, sometimes enhancing hypersexuality in people who are truly afraid of the objects they think they love. Adolescents, fearing magreo, can initiate a kind of spurious full sexuality; adults may overvalue sex to cover up an unconscious fear of the harm it might do. Such a counterphobic attitude may be socially welcome in a postmodern view of sex as gymnastic performance or hygiene, motivated by what Ken Wilber described as “an exuberant superficiality and reckless “. Traffic accidents have been linked to the counterphobic and manic attitude of the driver.

Language

Julia Kristeva believes that language can be used by the developing child as a counterphobic object, protecting against anxiety and loss. The psychology of the self indicates that through the ambiguities of language, the concrete meaning of words can violate the counterphobic attitude and return the child to a state of fear.

Freud

Didier Anzieu sees Freud’s psychoanalytic theorizing as a counterphobic defense against anxiety through intellectualization: constantly ruminating on the instinctive and emotional world that is the true object of fear. Wilhelm Fliess played the role of counterphobic object for Freud during his period of later self-analysis.

Therapy

Otto Fenichel considers that undoing the systematized counterphobic defenses is only the first step in therapy, which needs to be followed by the analysis of the original anxiety. He also thinks that psychological trauma can destroy the counterphobic defenses, with results that “can be very painful for the patient; they are, from a therapeutic point of view, favorable. “David Rapaport emphasizes the need for care and extreme slowness in the analysis of counterphobic defenses.

Cultural examples

The attraction of horror movies has been thought to be based on a counterphobic impulse Actors typically have a shy personality, released counterphobically when acting.