Worry, grief, disgrace, embarrassment, and different uncomfortable feelings usually are not nice. Every now and then it’s fairly regular to keep away from a scenario, particular person, place, or factor which may set off an undesirable emotion, however when it interferes together with your day by day functioning and/or turns into a problematic recurring situation, it’s clinically outlined as emotional avoidance.
Emotional avoidance is something you do to make an emotion go away or grow to be much less intense. All of us do it in some unspecified time in the future however the issue with emotional avoidance is that we often view the emotion (and the bodily emotions that include it) as harmful or threatening. In flip, many individuals do the whole lot doable to make the emotion go away or grow to be much less intense. How do they do this precisely? By 5 “methods” – or fairly, unproductive coping mechanisms – known as whole avoidance, refined avoidance, thought avoidance, fear, and security alerts.
In my work as founder and director of the Kentucky Middle for Nervousness and Associated Problems, I deal with many individuals who discover it tough to cease the cycle of emotional avoidance. However it’s doable to do, and treatable, and my sufferers go on to dwell more healthy, fuller, extra assertive lives.
Three Forms of Emotional Avoidance
One kind of emotional avoidance is simple to acknowledge; whole avoidance is totally avoiding a scenario, or just about something, that triggers an intense emotion. In whole avoidance, we regularly state, whether or not externally or internally, “I don’t do _____” as if it is part of who we’re. Whole avoidance can embrace bodily issues or locations like social gatherings, public talking, crowds, theaters, driving on the interstate, open areas, tunnels, and bridges, in addition to emotional processes like apologizing, listening to sure songs, or not eager to have any contact with somebody who beforehand wronged you.
One other kind, refined avoidance, refers to being in an uncomfortable scenario however not absolutely experiencing that scenario. I seek advice from this as “I’m there, however I’m not utterly there.” For instance, you get anxious ordering meals at a restaurant. Though you order your meals, you by no means make eye contact with the particular person taking your order. Different examples embrace sitting alone in one other room throughout household gatherings or not talking to somebody in a social scenario, driving your automotive to social occasions “in case” you get anxious and wish to go away early, all the time utilizing the self-checkout line at a grocery store to keep away from folks, not watching a tragic scene in a film, or sitting in an aisle seat at a theater in case you’re feeling you’re at risk and “want” to flee.
Thought avoidance, one more emotional avoidance technique, refers to stuff you do to maintain your thoughts off uncomfortable ideas. Examples embrace pushing away unfavorable ideas (which come again), distraction with issues like video video games, TV, music, and even taking a nap. One of the vital frequent thought avoidance methods that plagues many individuals is one thing we’re all acquainted with – fear.
Fear as an Avoidance Technique and Why it Doesn’t Work
Fear, a method the place you keep away from the feelings and the unfavorable pictures of the scary consequence (that’s unlikely to occur), is usually misunderstood. As a Christian, I imagine all feelings are a present from God, even “unhealthy” ones, however as a clinician I additionally know that we don’t need to be mastered by feelings like fear and that we will dwell in emotional maturity. Fear will not be solely unhelpful however it could actually deceive us – Jesus himself tells us to not do it – and therapists know it’s unproductive. In my latest ebook, Mastering Our Feelings: Biblical Ideas for Emotional Well being, I clarify how we will expertise emotional transformation. Utilizing my therapeutic experience and offering workouts, worksheets, reflection prompts, and Scripture readings, I assist readers higher perceive considering patterns, emotional triggers, and avoidance behaviors.
Figuring out fear is an important ability in recognizing the method of fear so we will management it and hopefully put it out of our minds. Fear will not be anxiousness, however fairly a response to anxiousness. And whereas intentions are good, folks usually attempt to use fear to handle their anxiousness, but it surely by no means works. Nervousness and fear have a bidirectional relationship; anxious ideas usually result in fear as an try and handle anxiousness however fear as a method results in extra anxiousness sooner or later.
Downside Fixing As a substitute of Fear
Fear happens in our brains to shift our consideration away from “seeing” the pictures of the scary consequence and stopping us from processing the feelings related to that feared consequence. For instance, let’s say you get anxious about an unknown bodily sensation in your physique. To deal with the anxiousness, you are worried in regards to the bodily symptom. You verify Google for hours for what the signs may imply, asking household or mates if these signs are regular, looking out on-line for treatments, and even distracting your self with one thing else. Within the quick time period, you’re feeling reduction as a result of it looks as if you’re drawback fixing.
However actually what you’re doing is feeding the fear and that results in extra anxiousness over time. The truth is, most individuals fear about occasions which have a really low chance of taking place. True drawback fixing, alternatively, results in decision and a lower in anxiousness.
Security Alerts – What Are They in Emotional Avoidance
One of the vital refined avoidance methods you might use in emotional avoidance is named a ‘security sign’. It’s something – a water bottle, an important oil, a determine, a cell phone or different system, or perhaps a particular particular person or pet – you have to have with you to make you’re feeling extra snug in a scenario that you simply understand as harmful.
Security alerts work by reinforcing the concept that conditions usually are not secure until you’ve this object or particular person with you. Many individuals situation themselves to handle intense feelings on this manner. In consequence, when the thing or particular person will not be there for a perceived harmful / uncomfortable scenario, the limbic system is activated and intense feelings happen. As such, you study to affiliate feeling much less distressed together with your security sign and it turns into a behavior so that you can have it. And it could be that you simply keep away from the depth of feelings within the quick time period however preserving security alerts with you maintains the depth of those feelings in the long run.
It may be mandatory at instances to have a assist particular person with you in conditions which can be realistically difficult or harmful, reminiscent of awaiting information from a physician or attending a parent-teacher convention, however some folks with an emotional avoidance situation get so used to security alerts that they don’t see them as an issue till they don’t have the merchandise with them.
Tailored from Mastering Our Feelings by Kevin Chapman. ©2025 by Kevin Chapman. Utilized by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
