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Christotherapy II
Bernard Tyrrell, PhD, S.J.

Chapter XIII
Anxiety and Fear

Individuals who are seeking the healing of sinful, neurotic or addictive difficulties or who are in quest of ever higher levels of psychological and spiritual growth must always deal in some manner and degree with such basic human feelings as anxiety, fear, anger, sadness and guilt. These feelings are at the core of any truly developing person’s experience of being and living. My goal in this and the remaining chapters of this book is to show in a very specific, concrete way how to apply the principles and methods of Christotherapy to the healing and education of these most fundamental human feelings.

Before zeroing in on the specific feelings of anxiety and fear I wish to sketch the sequence of stages involved in the healing and education of feeling responses in general. The reader will recognize in my sketch of stages a more differentiated development of my earlier outline of the stages of the processes of mind- fasting and spirit-feasting.

The Christotherapist in a diagnostic and appreciative approach to the healing and education of feelings should first assess whether the seeker is at ease and basically free in regard to the expression of his or her feelings. If the seeker is not free and comfortable in speaking about his or her feelings then it is the first task of the Christotherapist through existential loving to create a climate of acceptance, warmth, and “letting-be” in which the seeker can come to feel free and at ease with himself or herself and with the Christotherapist in expressing feelings.

The Christotherapist and the seeker of healing or deeper educational refinement in the feeling area need to be aware of seven possible stages in the healing and refining processes. I will present these stages from the perspective of the seeker.



Stages in the Healing and Education of Feelings

A first stage in the healing and refinement of feelings is the cultivation of an openness of the seeker to his or her feeling experiences. This requires attentiveness to even momentary flashes or intimations of the existence of certain feelings or subtle mood shifts. For often enough repressed feelings make brief but disguised appearances in such phenomena as facial constrictions, sharp denial that one has such and such a feeling, avoidance of certain areas of discussion or persons, rigidity and refusal to go beyond the superficial in conversation.

A second stage consists in identifying a certain feeling or mood, distinguishing it from other feelings, naming it and recognizing its recurrence. To be able to have a feeling, to distinguish it from other feelings and moods is already to begin to enjoy a certain objectivity in reference to the feeling and to experience an initial control in regard to that feeling.

A third stage involves an owning and initial acceptance of a certain feeling as a real aspect of what I presently experience in myself. Very often this takes place when another person vividly acknowledges and owns a particular feeling and I am able to identify with the person in the feeling experience he or she is ex pressing. This experience of identification is a common phenomenon in such groups as Emotions Anonymous and Recovery Incorporated. I should also emphasize that feelings occur spontaneously and as such they are not to be viewed in a moral context. There is, for example, all the difference in the world between the spontaneous feeling of hatred and a hatred which is deliberately, freely and maliciously fostered. No spontaneous feeling is proof in itself of the moral state of the individual who has such a feeling.

A fourth stage consists in acknowledging to myself and, in appropriate circumstances, to another person or persons exactly how I feel, what mood I am experiencing. Human beings are social beings and they possess a spontaneous orientation, a natural desire to share themselves and how they feel with others. Moreover, often enough in the very process of manifesting oneself to another, a person gains deeper, more revelatory insight into his or her feelings. In Christotherapy I describe this as the healing law of revelation of the self to the self through self-manifestation.

A fifth stage involves a prayerful focusing of attention on the objects which evoke one’s specific feeling responses and a detecting in one’s consciousness of the images, attitudes, fantasies, thoughts which mediate and to a greater or lesser degree deter mine one’s feeling responses to given objects. At this stage the individual needs to develop the capacity to recognize the medium or lower “voices” in the “polyphony of consciousness,” the “automatic” thoughts and images which occur in the background of one’s consciousness.

At a sixth stage the individual needs to seek prayerfully a diagnostic or appreciative understanding of the existential quality of the objects of his or her feeling responses and of the images, fantasies, thoughts, attitudes which are mediating these feeling responses. The final goal of the individual at this stage is to arrive at an authentic discernment, a correct diagnosis or appreciation of the disvalue or value, the destructiveness or the constructiveness of the objects of his or her feeling responses and, very importantly, of the images, attitudes, ideas which mediate these feeling responses.

At a seventh and final stage the individual is called to make a free, positive decision to live in accord with the authentic diagnostic and appreciative discernment he or she has reached in stage six. The individual demonstrates the reality of this decision by ceasing to cultivate those objects, images, attitudes, ideas, fantasies which have clearly manifested themselves to be existentially invalid, death-bearing, self-destructive. The individual likewise actively lives out his or her decision by appreciatively cultivating those objects, images, attitudes, ideas which have revealed them selves as existentially valid, as life-giving, as sources of self-transcendence. As the individual engages in the ongoing practice of the authentic fasting and feasting of the mind and heart he or she experiences a fundamental healing and maturation in the area of basic feeling states and responses.


Anxiety
The term anxiety has its etymological roots in Greek and Lat in words which involve the idea of strangling, compressing, stress. Anxiety is a general feeling state of psychic discomfort, tension, apprehension, uneasiness, unrest.

What causes anxiety? I do not believe there is only one cause. A baby, for example, experiences anxiety when it misses the person whom it loves and longs for and on whom it depends for basic care and protection. A baby also experiences anxiety when he or she senses rejection or a basic lack of love and acceptance. Individuals also commonly experience anxiety in periods of developmental crisis and personality disintegration.

There are normal, healthy forms of anxiety and there are neurotic types of anxiety. Anxiety, for example, is normal and healthy for a baby who temporarily misses his or her protector. But neurotic anxiety arises when a baby is subjected to repeated experiences of long-lasting periods of abandonment by the protector. Neurotic anxiety also occurs in the individual who experiences radical rejection or mere extrinsic valuation.

There is some evidence to suggest that the baby in its early stages of development first manifests a type of startle in the face of a threat; at a further stage of development anxiety is felt; still later there is a feeling response of fear when the baby develops to the point where it can perceive threats from specific objects in its environment. If this analysis is correct, then anxiety is a more primal feeling experience than fear.


Fear
Anxiety tends to consist in a generalized feeling state without a clearly defined object whereas fear is a feeling always related to a very specific threatening object, either real or imagined. Fear, like anxiety, can be normal or neurotic. The fear response is normal when it is proportionate to the particular object that is threatening, e.g. intense fear is a normal response to an attack by a vicious animal. Fear is neurotic, however, when there is a radical disproportion between the fear-response and the threatening object. I do not include here, however, the fear-responses of children who are products of their lively, developing imaginations. Fear is also neurotic when it manifests itself in phobias of various types. These latter are explainable in terms of traumatic events, neurotic anxiety and other causes.

Neurotic fear can have its roots in neurotic anxiety. The rejected individual, for example, experiences a sense of impotence in the face of threats to his or her basic personhood and worth. The rejected person is also lacking in a basic sense of trust in existence. He or she thus stands alone and is caught as a result in a double bind. He or she experiences a sense of inner worthlessness and powerlessness in the face of various threats, and at the same time feels no trust in other human beings and in reality itself as a source of protection.



Educating the Feeling of Fear

Just as a person can grow throughout his or her life in an on going refinement of aesthetic feelings, so an individual can move from a level of primitive fear responses to highly mature, spiritualized fear responses. Kazimierz Dabrowski, for example, describes a primitive form of fear which arises as a reaction to threats of natural disasters, physical pain, sudden death. But Dabrowski also depicts higher level types of fear which are altruistic and even cosmic.’ It is then desirable to seek both for oneself and others an authentic education and maturation of feeling responses of fear.

Images and symbols are powerful instruments for the education of feelings and, unfortunately, for the miseducation of feelings as well. The images and symbols of Holy Scripture, of Dante’s Divine Comedy, of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and similar writings are especially fruitful sources for the authentic education and transformation of feeling responses, including the feeling of fear.

Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool (Lk. 12:16—20) who spent his time figuring out how to increase his holdings instead of preparing to meet his Lord effects an education of fear on the purgative level of the meditator on the parable. Likewise, Dante’s vivid symbolic portrayal of the sufferings of the damned and Ignatius’ First Week meditations on sin and hell can aid the meditator to experience a salutary education of the feeling of fear in the face of the self-destructive effects of sin. The meditator, however, on Jesus’ parable and on Dante’s and Ignatius’ vivid descriptions of sin and hell is aware of the presence of God’s creative and redemptive love and so his or her fear is transformed from a cringing servile fear into a filial fear which reverences God’s Lordship and worships him “in reverence and fear” (Heb. 12:29).

The education and refinement of fear involves a certain hierarchy of levels of maturation. At one level a person’s astonishment that he or she is not afraid where fear should be present serves as a catalyst in the education of fear. Here Jesus’ advice can prove instructive: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Mt. 10:28). At another level one’s experience of disquietude at the fact that one is more fearful about one’s own state of health than about the health of a person one loves can provide a stimulus for maturation in the quality of one’s fear. One can begin perhaps to imitate Paul the Apostle in his care for others: “There is my daily preoccupation: my anxiety for all the churches. When any man has had scruples, I have had scruples with him” (2 Cor. 11:28—29). In Paul, as in his Master Jesus, there is revealed a deep empathy and sensitivity to the fear and anxieties of others. At this level of the education of fear “the primary element in fear is altruistic concern, care for others, for those who are weak, easily frightened and taken advantage of by others.”° There are also, at a very high level of emotional maturation, the fears and anxieties of the mystics as they confront the mysteries of contingency and death at their deepest levels and experience those purifications of mind and heart which lead to the highest forms of union with God in prayer possible in this life. In describing various levels in the education of fear I have not at tempted to be exhaustive but rather simply to focus attention on some important stages in this ongoing process in the education of the feeling of fear.

The education of the feeling of fear and of other feelings as well does not take place within a vacuum, but occurs as a dynamic element within developmental and/or conversional processes going on within the person. Erik Erikson, Daniel Levinson, Gail Sheehy and others all indicate that there is a series of crisis-stages which occur in the individual who is growing chronologically and psychologically. At these times there is often an intensification of feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, sadness, depression and other emotions. Likewise, Kazimierz Dabrowski offers evidence that as an individual moves beyond a primitive stage of personality integration on the way toward the highest level of personality integration he or she passes through various stages of positive disintegration in which lower levels disintegrate to make way for the higher. As individuals pass through various stages of positive disintegration they can experience intense feelings of anxiety, fear, shame, guilt and other emotions. Dabrowski insists, however, that these intense feeling experiences are not necessarily pathological but rather inner dynamisms which move the individual toward the highest ideal of personality integration. Dabrowski points out that as the individual moves closer toward this highest level he or she affirms and befriends those “fears and anxieties which are altruistic, existential, or even cosmic.” The individual also purifies states of fear and anxiety “of everything that is not empathic, social, or existential.”

Clearly, the authentic education of fear and of other emotions requires in the educator a knowledge of the roles particular emotions play in the various stages of personality development. The Christotherapist must recognize that not all intense experiences in individuals of anxiety, fear, depression, and frustration are neurotic. They can just as well be heralds of a breakthrough toward a new and higher level of personality integration. But the correct discernment of the meaning of the particular fear, anxiety or other emotion which a person is experiencing is not an easy task. It requires a highly refined development of the capacities for existential, diagnostic and appreciative discernment.

Besides the educational encouragement of healthy feelings of anxiety and fear there is also the process of healing neurotic forms of anxiety and fear. In most contemporary works which treat of the emotions of anxiety and fear the focus is almost exclusively on the pathological expressions of these emotions. But I felt it important to show that the feelings of anxiety and fear can be positive and life-enhancing as well as destructive and that individuals are called to educate themselves and others in wholesome and holy forms of anxiety and fear.

As I indicated already, there are a variety of causes of neurotic anxiety and fear. My outline of the seven stages for the healing and education of feelings provides a fundamental method for at tempting to uncover and deal with the various forms of anxiety and fear as well as other emotions. But I must limit myself here to presenting one basic concrete example of precisely how the Christotherapist can guide a person suffering from a key form of neurotic anxiety and certain specific fears through the four stages of the psychological conversion process. I hope that counselors, spiritual directors and others, drawing upon their own knowledge and experience, will be able to make creative applications of my general principles in specific problem areas I have not touched upon.



An Example

Jack, about thirty-five years old, comes to Betty, a Christotherapist, seeking help because he is in extreme emotional distress. In early conversations Jack explains that his mother and father never got along and are now separated. Jack further recounts that his mother paid very little attention to him as he was growing up, except to criticize him constantly for not doing better in whatever he happened to be doing either at home or at school. Jack frankly admits that he never felt really loved by his mother and that he in turn found it difficult to express affection toward her, even though he desperately wanted her love. Jack describes his father as a weak man, dominated by his mother. Jack’s father did show affection toward him but was very insecure himself and suffered from hypochondriasis and phobias of various types.

Jack reveals in therapy that he feels like a failure, even when he succeeds in various endeavors. No matter how much he achieves, he still feels a deep gnawing sense of inner worthlessness. What is worse, Jack often experiences an intense anxiety that at times verges on panic. He becomes very tense in crowds and at times, while riding the subway, he has experienced such agonizing fear that it was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out to the conductor: “Stop the train! I’ve got to get off!” Jack is also constantly afraid, like his father, that he is going to get some dreadful disease. He hates to be around sick people and avoids them whenever he can. In general Jack manifests him self to his Christotherapist as a person whose life is full of worry, fearfulness, phobic tendencies and anxiety.

Within a few sessions it is manifest to Betty that Jack is one of the rejected ones who is in need of “psychic birth.” Betty accordingly seeks to beget in Jack a sense of self-worth and self-confidence through the ongoing practice of holistic existential loving. Betty notes that Jack is more fortunate than many other rejected individuals because he discerns rather early in the process of therapy that he was rejected by his mother. In many cases the rejected individual has repressed the fact of rejection and it takes some time in therapy before the reality of rejection is recognized and acknowledged.

Betty, early in therapy, points out to Jack that he has taken a very important first step in the movement away from the neurotic hell of anxiety and fear in which he dwells in making the decision to seek help and in acknowledging openly his sense of powerlessness in dealing with his anxiety and phobias and of how unmanageable his life has become. Neurosis is a “negating of possibilities, it is the shrinking up of one’s world.” For this reason many neurotics are fearful of taking any action. Yet, the failure to seek help is itself a kind of decision which entombs the sufferer more deeply in his or her neurotic hell. Betty tells Jack about the First Step of Emotions Anonymous in which powerlessness over one’s emotions and unmanageability in one’s life are acknowledged, and she congratulates Jack for, in effect, taking this first step. Betty also tells Jack about Maurice Nesbitt, a man like Jack who had to struggle mightily with fear, and who in his book Where No Fear Was wrote:

In the first place, one has got to admit that one is afraid. This is a humiliating confession to make, and one makes it very reluctantly. But in a matter so important as this, honesty is the best policy.’

Betty, up to this point, has employed a number of psychological means to help Jack begin to turn away from his radical neurotic condition, e.g. existential loving, encouragement in his “first step,” providing him with an example of another neurotic sufferer with whom he could identify. But Jack is a believing Christian and he tells Betty that he came to her because he hoped that she, as a Christotherapist, could show him how to use Christian principles and prayer in his quest for psychological healing. Betty, in response, at once tells Jack that she has been praying for him since he first called and made an appointment to see her. She also indicates that if he would feel comfortable with the procedure, she would pray with him briefly at the beginning and end of their sessions. Jack is delighted with this procedure. Betty did not begin their first session with a prayer because she wanted to find out what Jack’s views about God and prayer were. Betty knew from her training that it is a mistake to presume from the outset of a therapeutic encounter that the seeker will be open to making prayer an explicit factor in the session.

Betty next seeks to help Jack come to a gut-level diagnostic understanding that his inner sense of worthlessness and his basically negative self-image and self-concept are a lie rooted largely in his experience of rejection. Betty counters this lie with the truth that Jack is a child of God, created in the image and likeness of God. Betty stresses that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8) and that God loves and delights in each of his creatures who are in his image and likeness. Little by little Betty teaches Jack how to spot the self-destructive thoughts of “how inferior I am,” “how unlovable I am,” which occur intermittently in the background of his consciousness. Betty helps Jack to see the lie in these thoughts and to let go of them. In their place Betty suggests that Jack put images of himself as a beloved child of God, as a brother of Jesus Christ, as a friend whom Betty and others like and appreciate. Betty is here using both psychological and spiritual means to help Jack let go of those negative beliefs and images which belong to the lie that is Jack’s anti-self and to cultivate those truths which reveal to Jack his true self as a lovable child of God, created in God’s own image.

Jack’s problem, however, is not limited to the struggle to come to a realization of his intrinsic worth and acceptability as a person. He is beset with intense fears and debilitating phobias. Certainly, as Jack gradually comes to a felt-realization and appre- ciation of his value as a person, he will experience an increase in self-confidence and a diminishment in the intensity of his felt anxiety, and also of his fears and phobias. But the psychic-birthing process is for the most part lengthy and it is necessary for the Christotherapist to provide immediate aid to Jack in dealing with his fears and phobias.

Jack has already taken a major first step in the process of a radical turning-from his fears and phobias in acknowledging his sense of powerlessness in their regard. Betty needs to help Jack come to the existential insight that his excessive fears in certain areas are largely due to the fact that when he was very young he could not feel total trust and security in the presence of a parent he sensed did not love him. For this reason, even when ordinary dangers threatened him, he felt an exaggerated fear since he lacked trust in his maternal protector. Moreover, because his father was a neurotically fearful individual, Jack also tended to make his own the intense fear responses of his father. Dr. Albert Ellis would say that Jack’s neurotic responses flowed from the irrational idea “that if something seems dangerous or fearsome, you must preoccupy yourself with and make yourself anxious about it.” Betty needs to help Jack locate this idea as one of the automatic thoughts or images which recur in the background of his consciousness so that Jack can see it for what it is—irrational and untrue—and begin little by little to let go of it.

But Betty also needs to help Jack begin to make a radical turn toward a Higher Power which can bestow on him a sense of trust in life and courage in living. Because Betty knows that she can tap the reservoir of faith which Jack possesses she begins to encourage him to focus his attention on God as a Loving Protector who is always present to him and providentially at work in his life. Betty encourages Jack to pray over and even commit to memory Psalm 91 in which God promises that he will protect those who trust in him:

I rescue all who cling to me,

I protect whoever knows my name,

I answer everyone who invokes me,

I am with them when they are in trouble.

(Ps. 91:14—15)

Betty also recommends other Psalms to Jack as especially helpful for the healing of fear, such as Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd, and Psalm 27 In God’s Company There Is No Fear.’ Betty also encourages Jack by pointing out to him that in his turning to God for help in his struggle with fear and by entrusting himself to the providential care of God, he has, in effect, carried out the Second and Third Steps of Emotions Anonymous in which neurotics come to believe that a Power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity and make a decision to hand their will and their lives over to God. This knowledge is most beneficial to Jack be cause it helps him to realize that he is following a path which has aided countless human beings to move toward mastery over their fears.

As a further aid to Jack in helping him to deepen the turning- toward stage of his radical psychological conversion Betty suggest gests that Jack meditatively read the book by Hannah Hurnard entitled Hinds’ Feet on High Places.’ This book is an allegory in which a character named “Much Afraid,” who is a member of the “Family of Fearings” and dwells in the village of “Much Trembling,” is helped by the Chief Shepherd to escape from the valley and to finally reach the “High Places where ‘perfect love casteth out fear.’ “18 Betty knows that this book is a potential source of a powerful bibliotherapeutic experience for Jack because the author of this book, like Jack, had to struggle with fear, and the book expresses in allegorical form the author’s own passage through the various stages of the healing of fear. Hannah Hurnard herself acknowledges in a preface to Mountains of Spices, a sequel to Hinds’ Feet on High Places:

I was born with a fearful nature—a real slave of the Fearing Clan! But I have since made the glorious discovery that no one has such a perfect opportunity to practice and develop faith as do those who must learn constantly to turn fear into faith.’

The Bible, of course, is the supreme bibliotherapeutic source. Maurice Nesbitt acknowledges that he found healing “by the sun- pie expedient of re-reading the Biblical record and adapting the material imaginatively” to his own condition. But the books of Hannah Hurnard are themselves steeped in the imagery of Holy Scripture and alive with the healing hope and inspiration which Christ, the Chief Shepherd, gives to all who open themselves to him and his transforming touch. I should point out that the per son Jack in my case presentation is a well educated individual. Obviously the Christotherapist must adapt the use of bibliotherapy to the mentality and cultural stage of development of the seeker.

In the clinical example I am presenting, Jack is suffering from certain severe phobias as well as from an excessive sense of fearfulness in facing up to the challenges of life. I have found working with various individuals suffering from phobias that Viktor Frankl’s “paradoxical intention” Is a very powerful psychological technique for either eliminating or significantly alleviating phobic difficulties. Accordingly, I have integrated the technique of paradoxical intention into my spiritual-psychological synthesis.

Viktor Frankl, as early as 1929, made use of the technique of paradoxical intention. Succinctly expressed, the core of paradoxical intention, as applied to phobias, consists in intending or wishing for, only for a second,” the very thing one fears. Frankl served that in persons suffering from phobias a certain chain of psychic events took place which resulted in a kind of vicious circle. Specifically, Frankl noted that if a person had a certain experience, e.g. sweating profusely in meeting one’s boss, the individual in some cases became fearful that he or she would manifest this embarrassing somatic phenomenon again in similar circumstances. But the fear of recurrence tended to bring about the very thing one feared. “A self-sustaining vicious circle is established: A symptom evokes a phobia; the phobia provokes the symptom; and the recurrence of the symptom reinforces the phobia.” Frankl discovered, however, that if he encouraged the phobic individual to intend deliberately the occurrence of the very symptom he or she feared, then this exercise of “paradoxical intention” tended to break the vicious circle and the symptom of ten disappeared.

In the clinical example I have been presenting, Jack suffers from a severe case of hypochondriasis. He is constantly fearful that he will come down with some dread disease. Betty, accordingly, seeks to help Jack learn the technique of paradoxical intention. She teaches him that when, for example, he begins to experience a fear that he will get cancer, he should internally say to himself “I hope to get cancer and the sooner the better. And for good measure I hope I come down with several other serious diseases as well.” Jack should repeat this process of paradoxical in tending whenever he begins to experience the appearance in his consciousness of the old fear. There is a very high probability that Jack will experience the complete disappearance of his phobia or at least a significant mitigation of the intensity of his phobia and a growing capacity to cope with it in an adequate fashion. I myself have utilized paradoxical intention in a good number of different cases of phobia and it has produced excellent results. In fact, I dealt with a case similar to Jack’s example, and with in one week the phobia regarding the contracting of some fearful illness had disappeared. Also, it is especially appropriate for the Christotherapist to utilize a method like paradoxical intention be cause the latter is a psychological procedure which effects a certain self-transcendence in which the sufferer actually laughs at the phobia and grows in an inner sense of self-detachment and freedom.

Betty continues to aid Jack in the turning-toward stage of his radical conversion from neurotic anxiety and fear. She engages him to deepen himself daily, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in his commitment to Christ, and to learn to deal successfully with temptation he is sure to encounter. Accordingly, like “Much Afraid” in Hinds’ Feet on High Places, and, like the person who commits himself or herself to the following of Christ in the Ignatian meditation on the Kingdom, Jack entrusts himself ever more fully to the Chief Shepherd. Likewise, with Betty’s help Jack learns to unmask the strategies and temptations of “the Fearing Clan,” e.g., neurotic attitudes and behavior and to discern appreciatively the attitudes and methods of the Good Shepherd.

A principal temptation the fear-neurotic experiences in varying degrees in both radical and ongoing psychological conversion is cowardice. Jack, then, needs to cultivate faith and holy courage. And, “courage consists not of the absence of fear and anxiety but of the capacity to move ahead even though one is afraid.” What Jack must do is fix his eyes on Jesus Christ and contemplate him in such mysteries as his calming of the storm at sea (Lk. 8:22—25) and his raising of the fear-filled, doubting Peter from the waters (Mt.14:28—32). Jack should also keep constantly in his heart the words which Jesus spoke to Jairus, the synagogue official, when he was told that his daughter was dead: “Fear is useless; what is needed is trust” (Mk. 5:37 N.A.B).

A second temptation the “Much Afraid” type of person is subject to is an overwhelming fear of suffering. In Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places the Chief Shepherd assigns two guides to help “Much Afraid” in her ascent to the “High Places.” These two guides are named Sorrow and Suffering. The Shepherd tells “Much Afraid” that she must trust these guides and learn to befriend them. She will learn valuable lessons from them and in the end their names will be changed into Joy and Peace. Jack must also keep in mind, as a source of courage, that “there are such things as treasures of darkness. The darkness, thank God, passes. But what one learns in the darkness one possesses forever.”

Dr. Abraham Low also provides some very helpful assistance to neurotics who basically fear the pain and discomfort of their neurotic symptoms. First, Low points out that neurotic symptoms, e.g. a panicky feeling, are “distressing and annoying but not at all dangerous.” Low also suggests that neurotics deliberately cultivate “THE WILL TO BEAR DISCOMFORT” since he holds that what the neurotic primarily fears is the discomfort present in the symptoms. I believe that by combining the cultivation of the truth that neurotic symptoms are distressing but not dangerous with the practice of the will to discomfort, the neurotic can often “break the back,” so to speak, of the neurotic symptomatology. This is so because, as in the case of paradoxical intention, the very basis of the fear is undermined and at times completely removed. The methods of Low are strictly psychological, but I believe that at a more profound level they can be rooted in a growing spiritual detachment in the face of suffering. I am not here urging a form of Stoicism, but rather a radical detachment rooted in an unswerving trust in God’s providence in all things.

A third temptation the fear-neurotic suffers is the tendency to give way easily in the face of neurotically threatening situations. Here the sufferer would do well to keep in mind some advice Saint Ignatius gives regarding dealing with a temptation of the devil. Ignatius points out that if a person faces the temptations of the evil one boldly “the enemy becomes weak, loses courage, and turns to flight.” On the other hand, if the tempted individual begins to “be afraid and to lose courage in temptations, no wild animal on earth can be more fierce than the enemy of our human nature.” The same is true as regards neurotic fear. If a person refuses to face the object of his or her fear, the dominance of the fear becomes greater and greater and it becomes successively more difficult to overcome it. In the case of the fear- neurotic there is often the tendency to use a drug or some other escape mechanism in the face of fear. But then the last state of the person is much worse than his or her original condition.

A fourth difficulty to which the fear-neurotic is subject is the temptation not to persevere in the struggle to overcome and to move from radical to an ever richer state of ongoing psychological conversion. In this case it is most important for the fear-neurotic and, indeed, for every neurotic, to begin each day by entrusting himself or herself to the care of the Good Shepherd during that day and by resolving to persevere at least for that day in the struggle with fear. A key maxim of Alcoholics Anonymous is “A day at a time,” and this motto is equally applicable in the case of the neurotic. Jesus himself taught this very attitude when he said: “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself” (Mt. 6:34). Indeed, the lives of countless individuals offer indisputable proof that persevering “a day at a time” blossoms of ten enough into a lifetime of authentic perseverance.

In my present discussion of anxiety and fear, and elsewhere throughout this book, I have referred to Emotions Anonymous and to Recovery Incorporated. Each of these self-help groups has proven to be a very rich source of aid, comfort and healing in varying degrees to thousands of suffering persons. In fact, it is quite appropriate in certain circumstances for a Christotherapist actively to suggest to a seeker that he or she attend one or other of these groups as a complementary aid to the therapy he or she is receiving. I have found, for example, that a person suffering from phobic difficulties can often derive significant help by participating in Recovery Incorporated.

There are significant differences between the principles and methods of Emotions Anonymous and Recovery Incorporated. There is not, for example, the spiritual stress in the latter which is so characteristic of the former. But there are also some important similarities in the approaches of the two groups. In both, for ex a there is a climate of basic support and encouragement. Likewise, in both, individuals are encouraged to give personal examples of how they suffered in the past from some particular neurotic difficulty; how they previously handled their neurotic problem in a destructive way; how they are now learning to handle their problem in a constructive, healing way through the use of the principles and methods of the group to which they now be long.

The personal testimonies of individuals within Emotions Anonymous and Recovery Incorporated are very powerful therapeutically when they are presented in an appropriate fashion. They promote self-expression and the freedom from repression which this often facilitates. They often give certain listeners to these stories insight into their own self-destructive attitudes and strategies for dealing with their neurotic pain. They force individuals who have been unconsciously or non-reflectively engaged in various forms of denial or rationalization regarding their real state to face themselves in a new way. They release tensions in individuals who identify deeply with what they hear and are led as a result to express their own feelings in an open way. They give each member a sense that he or she is not alone in his or her particular form of neurotic suffering. They evoke individual and group support for persons who are beginning to deal with their problems in a constructive fashion. They provide hope for beginners who see that others had problems as bad as or worse than their own, and yet managed with varying degrees of success to overcome these difficulties. They provide an opportunity for individuals who are at various stages of ongoing conversion to offer the support of example and of positive care and concern for those fledglings who are in need of radical psychological, conversion.

As I indicated earlier, in the case of the healing of neurotic deformation the shift from radical to ongoing psychological conversion involves more often than not a gradual rather than a sudden transition. In the case of Jack, then, which I have been presenting in the past few pages, there comes a point where through the experience of the existential loving of Betty and others and through his continuing practice of mind-fasting, spirit- feasting and other methods, he arrives at a point where the psychological health pattern is in clear ascendancy over the sickness pattern in his life. Jack is now in a state of ongoing psychological conversion.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola offers two sets of “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits.” He indicates that the first set of rules is more suited to the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises and that the second set is more appropriate for the Second Week. Saint Ignatius does not offer special rules for the last two Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises but presumes that the rules he has already elaborated will suffice for the last two weeks as well. Analogously, the basic set of existential methods I have already articulated, e.g., the methods of diagnostic and appreciative discernment, are equally applicable in the turning-from and turning-toward stages of ongoing psychological conversion. But there are further nuances involved in the application of these methods in the stages of ongoing psychological conversion and I would like to indicate some of these as they apply in the case of Jack which I have been presenting.

Jack, accordingly, although he is now in a state where he is more psychologically healthy than ill, must still deepen his rejection of neurotic attitudes and behaviors, which still tend to manifest themselves at times in greater or lesser degrees of intensity. Jack is now, however, less dependent on his Christotherápist and growing in his capacity for a certain self-therapy.

Among the qualities which Jack needs to cultivate, in the turning-from stage of this ongoing psychological conversion is the virtue of humility. Jack needs to keep clearly in mind that he is recovered and yet recovering. It will be helpful for Jack to cultivate what Dr. Low calls a sense of “averageness.” The person who appreciatively develops a sense of “averageness” avoids the pitfalls of the sentimentalist illusions of grandiosity and exceptionality. It is, of course, legitimate and, indeed, important for a person to “endorse” himself or herself for dealing well with a neurotic difficulty. To endorse oneself is to acknowledge to one self that one has had a victory in a struggle with some neurotic symptom. But this act of self-endorsement should be an act of self-endorsement in Christ, an acknowledgement of a success realized with the help of the greater Power. Thus, it does not mean that the person yields to illusions of grandiosity. Both the recovered and yet recovering addict and neurotic must beware of developing a false sense of pride or security. For the result is too often a relapse. Consequently, it is important for Jack to contemplate Jesus in the humble actions of his daily life, to seek to imitate Jesus who was “gentle and humble in heart” (Mt. 11:29) and who, though “his state was divine, yet ... did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave” (Ph. 2:6—7).

Another quality which Jack must learn to appreciate and cultivate is patient perseverance. This is needed when periods of darkness and discouragement come. Even in ongoing psychological conversion certain symptoms can reappear and in intense form. Jack may experience, for example, an outbreak of certain phobic tendencies which he thought were gone forever. He will be tempted to give in to discouragement and/or to engage in some self-destructive form of escape from the pain of the symptoms. At this time Jack must hold his ground and might recall the advice of Saint Ignatius who says that “in time of desolation we should never make any change, but remain firm and constant in the resolution and decision which guided us the day before the desolation.”

A further quality which Jack should prayerfully seek to develop is compassion. No one truly understands a particular suffering of another better than a person who has gone through the same thing. Jack should daily make the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi his own and seek to practice what he prays: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

Jack’s Christotherapist, Betty, can also help him to grow in self-knowledge by suggesting to him that he prayerfully read such works as Dante’s Purgatory, Hurnard’s central chapters in Hinds’ Feet on High Places where “Much Afraid” passes success fully through many tribulations, and, above all, the passion accounts in the Gospels. Betty should also suggest that Jack prayerfully memorize certain passages from these works, for in times of struggle and desolation these passages, like an oasis in the desert, will prove a source of refreshment and strength to move ahead patiently and with courage.

In ongoing psychological conversion, of course, the deepening movement of turning-from is always accompanied by an intensified turning-toward. And, in the measure God grants, the twofold movements are repeated at successively higher levels in the ongoing ascent of the spiral of transcendence.

As Jack advances in the turning-toward stage of his ongoing psychological conversion, he grows in an ever richer felt sense of God’s love for him and he experiences more deeply the fruits of the psychic birth Betty and others have brought about in him. He is filled with gratitude to Betty for mediating to him an experience of how much Christ loves and values him. He experiences his own inner worth, lovableness and value as a person, and he becomes increasingly more trustful toward himself, others and God. Anxiety and fear diminish in him as holy trust and courage increase.

In the First Epistle of John the author writes that “in love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love. . . and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love” (1 Jn.4:18). The author of the epistle is speaking, of course, of the type of fear which is the result of sin and of the type of love which is the gift of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rm. 5:5). It is important, consequently, not to misuse this text by identifying the type of fear which is described with neurotic fear or the type of love which is spoken of with merely human love. These distinctions are vital because it is possible for a person who experiences a deep sense of worthlessness and great neurotic fears, due to human rejection, to possess nonetheless the gift of God’s love in his or her heart—and in rich measure. This is so be cause psychological conversion and religious conversion are not identical realities.

In the case of Jack’s psychological conversion, however, Betty uses throughout the process both psychological and spiritual means. And Jack, in turn, utilizes throughout both psychological and spiritual means in his quest to pass from his initial inner neurotic hell to ever higher levels in the upward spiral of ongoing psychological conversion. Consequently, in his recovery process Jack experiences not only a radical psychological conversion, but also, at the same time, growth in ongoing religious and moral conversion. For this reason, the text of the First Epistle of John I just quoted is applicable to Jack in a special way, since his inner growth in the love of God has enabled him to become ever more free from fears due to his own sins as well as from his neurotic anxieties and fears.

To further his own continuous growth in the upward spiraling of ongoing psychological, religious and moral conversion it can be very helpful for Jack to read prayerfully such works as Dante’s Paradise, Part Two of Hinds’ Feet on High Places entitled “Joy cometh in the morning” and the Spiritual Canticle of Saint John of the Cross, with the accompanying commentary. Saint John is commenting, of course, on the Song of Songs in the light of his own inner mystical experiences. As Jack turns ever more fully toward the Lord and toward others in self-transcending forms of love and service he will be able to say with the Bride in the Spiritual Canticle:

Now I occupy my soul

And all my energy in His service.

I no longer tend the herd,

Nor have I any other work

Now that my every act is love.

In the case of Jack, I have been offering an example of the ideal case in which an individual moves from a need for radical psychological conversion to a high level in the upward spiral of ongoing psychological conversion. I believe that such profound healings do occur. But I also believe in many cases they do not. Why? Some individuals, of course, are not healed of their radical psychological woundedness because no one comes to their aid. God in his providence generally works through the instrumentality of human beings. Consequently, if people who are suffering from a famine are not supplied with food, they die. Similarly, if individuals suffering from radical love-deprivation do not encounter anyone who will bestow on them the gift of “psychic birth,” they generally remain prisoners of their deep sense of worthlessness. These unloved persons, however, belong to God who loves them, and they are encompassed by his providence in a fashion which transcends our narrow understanding of God’s ways. Again, there are individuals who are so severely crippled psychologically that their deformation seems almost as “irreversible as the, loss of. . . physical limbs.” Yet, even in these cases, at times “the spirit can grow in the midst of, in spite of, and through the instrumentality of” the very illnesses they suffer from. There can be developed “the willingness to act even without feeling,” and there can blossom “the tentative and ‘careful’ acts of love and goodness” and a “growth in the sense of the need for God’s help.” Further, there are others who do pass from a state of radical to ongoing psychological conversion and continue to suffer very intensely at times, and this, despite the fact that these individuals are at a high level of religious and moral conversion. I can only suggest that perhaps these individuals are under going a purgatorial type of suffering which is the equivalent of the dark nights which the mystics pass through. In yet other cases, there are individuals who pass from radical to ongoing psychological conversion and become very effective instruments in the healing of others but still suffer from recurrences of intense phobic or other types of difficulties. Perhaps, like the Apostle Paul, these individuals are permitted to continue experiencing a certain “thorn in the flesh” lest they should become proud as a result of the healing which God works through them. They are constantly reminded through their suffering that God shows his power in choosing the weak to overcome the strong. Ultimately, of course, God alone knows the meaning of the sufferings each individual undergoes. It is his will that each of us should seek to be free from psychological deformations. But it is also his will that when we have done all we can do we should accept what we and others cannot change, in patience and serenity, and we should unite our sufferings with those of Christ to do what we can “to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church” (Col. 1:24—25).


 

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