I am 42 years old and I was born in Arezzo (Tuscany, Italy). I am a psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in serious fears. I am divorced, and without children. Policy? I only believe in the c mbiate yourself . I am agnostic. I am a martial arts teacher. I have written The art of change, Brief therapy, philosophy and art and Fear, panic, phobias (Herder)
KUNG FU
Nardone is a master of kung fu because he sees there the keys to his psychotherapy: Maximum efficiency with minimal effort, he tells me . Giorgio Nardone formed in Palo Alto (United States) with Paul Watzlawick is one of the most prominent international figures in the treatment of phobias, panic, anxiety He maintains that your fear is a fantasy elaborated by your mind. And therefore, your mind can easily defeat it with another fantasy and the idea of strategies to guide fantasies. Work in Italy, and it has been explained in the Gestalt Institute of Barcelona. I learn from Nardone that feeling fear is normal and that to be ashamed of your fear is to forge a future phobia, that courage is born from looking fears in the face and that admitting your fragility will give you strength.
What is fear?
- It is a natural reaction of self-protection to the environment. Thanks to fear we are alive!
–Live the fear, then?
–It depends: if fear breaks out, it limits you, blocks you and becomes an enemy.
- To what extent can it break out?
- Until you are afraid of fear: panic. It is no longer a phobia, which is a fear linked to a particular thing or situation. No: a panic attack is unleashed for fear of having it. And the fear is such that your organism collapses, is blocked, you are paralyzed.
–And what do you feel physically?
- Vertigo, sweat, your heart beats until it seems to be broken, you feel that you are suffocating and that you are going to die or go crazy.
–And you get more and more scared, of course.
- But that circle can be broken: the pathological fears, the phobias, are cured. And the patient is free to live again.
-How?
–There are different systems. Some seek the cause of fear for the patient to overcome him with his will, something tiresome and long. I prefer to divert the patient's attention from his fear, and suddenly he discovers that he has defeated him! It is faster.
- Divert attention?
- Yes, with some particular strategy according to each case, according to each phobia. That's why I call it "strategic brief therapy."
- Give me examples.
–I had a patient who was afraid of the shadows, and….
- In the shadows? It's not possible…
- Yes it is: we can be afraid of everything. There can be thousands of types of monophobias: I had another who feared the uncapped bottles! Another, at the angles: isn't it a fright to live in fear of the angles?
- Of course ...
- I continue with the one of the shadows: to avoid them, he lived in the dark, with blinds down, always in gloom ... And even when he went to his psychoanalyst, they spoke in the dark! And so they had been seven years.
- And what strategy did you use?
- I persuaded him that the longer in the dark, the greater his future fear of the shadows. I made him feel a greater future fear of the present fear, so that he could collaborate.
- And he managed to heal?
- He agreed to undergo a small dose of shadows every day. We ordered glasses with blinders, which greatly limited vision, and with dark visors: the first day I sent him to eat out. "As soon as you feel bad, lower the visors, " I said. And so, a little more every day. And I ordered him: "And don't look left and right!" He, of course, did look ... And, after three months like that, he took off his glasses in an illuminated room.
- The truth is that the case is almost comical.
- The worst tragedy always contains a ridiculous background. Knowing how to see it is useful and intelligent.
- Can you tell me another case?
–A girl with phobia phobia. He avoided walking in certain areas unless a friend came forward to check for any. I asked him to find all the information he could about pigeons.
- How sadistic, isn't it?
-No: we replaced fear with curiosity. To the next session he explained many things about pigeons. Then I asked him to fable for half an hour with the worst fantasies with pigeons, and then approach one until he began to feel fear, and measure that distance every day. He overcame his fear of pigeons in ten sessions.
- And what about the fear of the plane?
- We have to look fear in the face, not shy away from it. How? Every day, for half an hour, imagine the worst fantasies about flying by plane. Put all your fear in there! And, on the day of the flight, focus on the fears of fear on the faces of others and write them down in a notebook: when you get on the plane, when the engines start, when you take off, when you fly, write them down, write them down ... So concentrated, landing you will notice that you have not felt fear!
- I will have diverted my attention ...
- ... towards something else. If he intends to curb his fear, he feeds him: first he will want to control him, then avoid him ... and there he has his phobia.
- But he doesn't say that I look at my fear in the face?
- And he will have done it: when he fantasized about his fear, he looked at it. Fear is like a ghost: touch it and it will fade away; Try to run away ... and he will chase and terrify you. That's why stories train children in the face of fears.
- I met someone with such fear of girls that I changed my sidewalk to avoid them.
We call that shyness: it is fear of being rejected, of not liking! I met one who even came to cosmetic surgery. He was not cured like this, because the fear of being rejected only expires ... getting used to being rejected.
- And what strategic therapy was useful here?
- "You must be rejected every day once, " I ordered. And it is not easy: he was discovering that he was not always rejected ... And so, every day he was exposed more and more, and was getting more yeses than not ... And goodbye shyness .
- Bravo! What if it scares me to speak in public?
- An hour before, imagine all the worst about it, focus all your anguish there. Then, on the stage, start like this: "Excuse me if I blush or sweat or lose myself: I don't feel very well lately." Everything will go smoothly: the declared fragility ceases to be such and becomes a point of strength!
- But how does a phobia originate?
- Do not waste time with the past: your fear is present and is about dissipating it. Once dissipated, he will be brave. Because only who has felt fear can be brave. Who does not ... is only unconscious.
Source: http://blocjoanpi.blogspot.com.es
"You have to look fear in the face." Giorgio Nardone.
