by Melissa Murphy

Created on: June 15, 2010

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions." Albert Einstein

Fear is characterized by a feeling of uneasiness or apprehension that carries with it an intense emotional response to a threat either real or imagined.  It is a painful emotion linked to the anticipation of impending doom, danger or dread.

Fear can be categorized into four distinct groups:

1)    Fear of physical pain.  This could be caused by an perceived aggressor but this type can also include the threat of starvation or lack of money to buy necessities to sustain you personally.

2)    Fear of emotional and mental distress.  An example of this would be the fear of losing a loved one either by breaking a relationship or by death.

3)    Fear of physical pain suffered by others.  A mother fearing injury to her child is a good example of this type of fear.

4)    Fear of emotional and mental distress of others.  For example, parents often feel an obligation to protect their children against others who might hurt their feelings.

 The faceless demons of fear are ever present in many people’s lives, haunting their successes in the future and paralyzing them from any present efforts toward achievement.  They are consistently warning themselves through negative self-talk about all that “might” happen.  Does this sound like you?  You are not alone.  Millions of people suffer the effects of fear which often manifest as severe stress and anxiety.

How Fear is Learned

From early childhood, we develop patterns of fear in several different ways.  We will discuss two of those ways here. 

1.)  We learn from watching our caretakers and others model fearful behavior.  This is a useful learning tool to prevent us from having to experience everything ourselves.  If we see somebody else get stung by a bee, we quickly learn to swat and/or run when we hear the buzzing of a bee.  Another example:  Your father comes home every day from work and expresses his concern about the longevity of his job and regularly worries about how he is going to support his family.  You, as a young child, would quickly identify with his grief, witness his anxiety and eventually share his fear even though you did not actually experience it, which leads us to another way that we learn to fear…….

2.)  Firsthand experience.  A person who

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