Anxiety… Using the hidden emotion technique to get to the bottom of an issue

[Lance]

I enjoyed this excerpt from Dr. Burn’s book “When Panic Attacks”

I would like to hear your thoughts on this…

 

The Hidden Emotion Technique sounds deceptively simple, but it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. That’s because you probably won’t be aware of the problem that’s bugging you when you feel anxious. At first, nearly all the anxious people I’ve treated have insisted that everything was just fine, except for the darn anxiety. It usually takes some time and good detective work before the problem surfaces.
Why do anxiety-prone individuals deny or “forget” their problems?

I believe it’s because most people who suffer from anxiety are overly nice.

I’m convinced that niceness is the cause of nearly all anxiety.

In fact, if you’re struggling with anxiety, I’ll bet you a dollar to a dime that you’re a very nice person.

Your “niceness” results from these kinds of Self-Defeating Beliefs:

 

• Pleasing Others. You feel as if you have to please everyone else, even at the expense of your own needs and feelings.
• Anger Phobia. You feel that you’re not allowed to be angry, or you may think that anger is dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. When you’re irritated or annoyed with someone, you act nice, push your feelings under the surface, and tell yourself that you shouldn’t feel the way you do.
• Conflict Phobia. You avoid conflict because you feel that you have to get along with everyone all the time.
• Emotional Perfectionism. You think you should always feel happy, cheerful, and optimistic about your life, your work, and other people.

• Emotophobia. This is the flip side of Emotional Perfectionism. Emotophobia is a term I coined that means “the fear of negative emotions.” You believe you should always be in control of the way you feel and never allow yourself to feel anxious, vulnerable, lonely, jealous, annoyed, or inadequate.

 

These Self-Defeating Beliefs are all slightly different ways of saying the same thing: namely, that you tend to be overly nice and you’re not always in touch with how you really feel. When you get upset, you automatically push the problem out of your mind. Pretty soon you’re so consumed by anxiety that you forget all about the problem that was bothering you in the first place.
Researchers don’t know why anxious individuals have this tendency to ignore problems. It’s not simply a matter of being psychologically naive. I’m pretty psychologically savvy, yet I sometimes overlook obvious conflicts or problems that are bugging me. Although anxiety-prone people are often unassertive, this usually isn’t the issue, and assertiveness training doesn’t correct the problem. The problem is that they don’t even know how they feel.

 

1.The Detective Work. This is the hardest part. You have to put on your thinking cap and try to figure out who or what is really bothering you. Bringing the problem to conscious awareness can be extremely difficult. You may tell yourself that you don’t have any problems except for the anxiety itself. But sooner or later the problem usually does surface. The problem will usually turn out to be something that’s bugging you in the here and now, not something that’s buried in the past. In addition, it nearly always will be something that’s pretty obvious, such as hating your job, being upset with a friend, or wanting to do something different with your life. It generally won’t be a deep, complicated psychological problem, like an Oedipal complex.

 

2. The Solution. Once you’ve identified the problem that’s bugging you, you’ll have to express your feelings and do something about it. When you solve the problem, your anxiety will frequently diminish or disappear.
 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Lance