How To Overcome Fears In Therapy
- Brainz Magazine
- Jan 11, 2024
- 3 min read
Written by: Thomas Goenczi, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
One of the most difficult challenges an individual has in therapy is to confront and come to grips with the fears that cause them the most suffering. Nevertheless, to prevent fear from dictating your life or from falling into the perception that fear is an illusion it would beneficial to understand it. Once it is understood you are better equipped to learn to defend against it and ultimately overcome it.
There are common and often shared fears with respect to the counselling experience. They include but are not limited to the following:
Fear of uncertainty when committing to counselling
Fear of embracing states of vulnerability and openness
Fear of confronting issues that you find disturbing of yourself
Fear of not being heard or being able to connect with the therapist
Fear of confronting topics that are rooted in trauma
And, fear of not attaining your goals/the fear of success
This is of course not an exhaustive list of all the potential fears that one may face, but rather shines a spotlight on the common fears that we all must confront in therapy on a regular basis.
Our fears seem to have a pulse on their own at times. When fear is neurotic or incongruent with reality it is as if it has a possessive-like quality to it. Fear truly restricts our capacity to live life in its truest essence or form when viewed in this way. However, fear also acts as the function of grounding us in a sense of reality and helps us from becoming psychologically over-inflated or narcissistic. Therefore, fear becomes an essential element for our capacity to assess levels of risk for any given situation.
However, what we don’t usually realize is when we consciously act out of fear, we perpetuate self-reliance for fear. In other words, when we choose to make decisions rooted in our fears, we create a habit of anticipating fear to emerge to choose how and when to act. This eventually causes an unconscious loop and wires us to have our fears become essential for decision-making.
So how does one even begin to overcome their fears and cause a break in that loop? When confronting fear there is a natural activation of courage. It can be said that courage is one’s psychological armour against fear and is the defence against the most disturbing of horrors.
However, courage can be difficult to conjure up at times of immense psychological suffering, and sometimes it isn’t enough. Nonetheless, if courage is our armour against fear, then our will is the accompanying weapon required to overcome it.
Our capacity to use our will in an effective manner is often disregarded in our lives and mostly framed as something that requires a sense of strength. Although strength is an essential characteristic or function of the will, there is also an element of skill and Good needed when willing something fully.
An example here might help. A man has encountered the common fear of bringing up a thought or situation in counselling where he acted in a way that he found disturbing. Let’s say he’s been swept up by uncontrollable fits of rage in the most minute of situations. This led to a situation that ended up genuinely scaring his wife.
In counselling, he is met with the bubbling dread of bringing this up to his therapist. Thoughts of “What will he think of me?” “Do I really need to bring this up?” “It wasn’t so bad…” all come rushing in at the intersection of fear. This is when the dawning of one’s courage equipped with the will decides one’s choice, do you either give in to the fear in a limited or conscious manner or confront it to try and overcome it?
This all happens generally in a matter of seconds, and often it happens unconsciously. However, if you have the ability in therapy to briefly pause, take a breath, and consciously assess how you would like to confront your fear it helps disarm it, you then become less attached to it, and it can propel you to press forward in your therapeutic journey.
Thomas Goenczi, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Thomas Goenczi, is a veteran of the Royal Canadian Navy, serving for seven years. After leaving the military Thomas pursued his Master of Counselling (Psychology). He now is a clinical counsellor providing his service through his private practice – Well Then Therapy. Thomas focuses on helping his clients and readers uncovering their unconscious roots of their mental struggles and reinfusing there lives with meaning. Thomas has recently reconnected with the military community with the mission of fostering an acceptance towards mental health. He is currently contributor to the Naval Newspaper. Lastly, he has a keen interest in psychoanalytic work, working with one's will, and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
