VARIOUS THEORIES OF ANXIETY

Now, I understand that I was in the throes of anxiety. After all these years, and training in both medical sciences and body-psychotherapy, I can find reasonable explanations for what actually was happening to me.

 

One simple explanation for my experience may be: I wanted to be back home with my father. At the same time, I clearly needed to go to school. My first real, unsolvable conflict in life.

 

On a biological level, my body reactions are easy to explain.

My body-mind reacted with the stress response. Adrenaline and cortisol were priming my body for defense: flight, fight or freeze. In a scan, a number of brain structures in the emotional brain will show signs of high activation and dysregulation.

Brain science says that anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing!

It has to do with anticipation. This is an evolutionary trait that helps us predict and gear-up for the future. If an animal can predict that a lion is around a certain bush it has a greater chance of survival. In my example, I was anticipating angry teachers, hostile students and the loss of my nuclear family, especially my father, due to long the distance from our home.

OTHER EXPLANATIONS 

Other explanations for anxiety are also appealing to me.

 

One theory has to do with two equally conflicting inner impulses.  You may experience a mild version of this when you want to go to see an exciting movie when at the same time you also feel very tired after a long week. That butterfly feeling may come up in you. It may soon feel unbearable! You may even start a fight with someone! Think about it: It is a great way to get out of this un-solvable internal conflict!

 

Another useful path of understanding anxiety comes from Family Constellations work (of Bert Hellinger). Here we understand anxiety as something that comes to us transmitted, non-consciously, from past generations via our own family system. Such tension can be carried over into our current life, often with detrimental effect, when we choose to hold on to our emotional entanglements.

 
In Core Energetics we follow the model of Character Structure.

Its theories are based on the view that during a child's maturation process certain traumatic events can occur.  Developmental trauma such as threat of death, abandonment, invasion, rejection, or betrayal will be met with predictable "defenses" against that trauma. Character structures can be seen as wholistic, mind-body-soul defense postures against an overwhelming internal conflict. In the Core Energtics model, each of the five major "character structures" will express their own specific kind of anxiety. Each needs a different kind of treatment response because each character defense asks for a resolution of a specific inner conflict.

 

A spiritual explanation for anxiety might be that it points to an aspect of one's un-completed inner potential. Your "butterflies in the stomach" may be Spirit pointing to your next step to self-realization. Courage may be needed. You may have to take an emotional risk. You may be faced with the need to give up ego "attachments". 

 

In time, you will find that next "right" step by trying out all your available options; you will know that you "got it" when you feel an increased sense of relief, ease, or "flow". As a result, you will also feel more aligned with your inner purpose.

   

There are many more theories of anxiety and various psychological methods to treat it. Many of them have to do with learning how to tolerate overwhelming emotions and hold opposing feelings at the same time.