Concern, grief, disgrace, embarrassment, and different uncomfortable feelings usually are not nice. Once in a while it’s fairly regular to keep away from a scenario, individual, place, or factor that may set off an undesirable emotion, however when it interferes along with your every day functioning and/or turns into a problematic recurring problem, it’s clinically outlined as emotional avoidance.
Emotional avoidance is something you do to make an emotion go away or develop into much less intense. All of us do it sooner or later 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 develop into much less intense. How do they do this precisely? By 5 “methods” – or quite, unproductive coping mechanisms – known as whole avoidance, delicate avoidance, thought avoidance, fear, and security indicators.
In my work as founder and director of the Kentucky Heart for Anxiousness and Associated Problems, I deal with many individuals who discover it troublesome 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 Varieties of Emotional Avoidance
One sort 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 frequently state, whether or not externally or internally, “I don’t do _____” as if it is part of who we’re. Complete avoidance can embody 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 desirous to have any contact with somebody who beforehand wronged you.
One other sort, delicate avoidance, refers to being in an uncomfortable scenario however not totally experiencing that scenario. I discuss with 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 individual taking your order. Different examples embody sitting alone in one other room throughout household gatherings or not talking to somebody in a social scenario, driving your automobile to social occasions “in case” you get anxious and want to go away early, all the time utilizing the self-checkout line at a grocery store to keep away from individuals, not watching a tragic scene in a film, or sitting in an aisle seat at a theater in case you are feeling you’re in peril and “want” to flee.
Thought avoidance, one more emotional avoidance technique, refers to stuff you do to maintain your thoughts off uncomfortable ideas. Examples embody pushing away destructive ideas (which come again), distraction with issues like video video games, TV, music, and even taking a nap. One of the vital widespread thought avoidance methods that plagues many individuals is one thing we’re all conversant in – 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 destructive photos of the scary end result (that’s unlikely to occur), is commonly misunderstood. As a Christian, I consider all feelings are a present from God, even “dangerous” ones, however as a clinician I additionally know that we don’t should be mastered by feelings like fear and that we are able to dwell in emotional maturity. Fear shouldn’t 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 current e book, Mastering Our Feelings: Biblical Rules for Emotional Well being, I clarify how we are able to expertise emotional transformation. Utilizing my therapeutic experience and offering workout routines, worksheets, reflection prompts, and Scripture readings, I assist readers higher perceive pondering patterns, emotional triggers, and avoidance behaviors.
Figuring out fear is a vital ability in recognizing the method of fear so we are able to management it and hopefully put it out of our minds. Fear shouldn’t be nervousness, however quite a response to nervousness. And whereas intentions are good, individuals usually attempt to use fear to handle their nervousness, however it by no means works. Anxiousness and fear have a bidirectional relationship; anxious ideas usually result in fear as an try to handle nervousness however fear as a method results in extra nervousness sooner or later.
Downside Fixing As an alternative of Fear
Fear happens in our brains to shift our consideration away from “seeing” the pictures of the scary end result and stopping us from processing the feelings related to that feared end result. For instance, let’s say you get anxious about an unknown bodily sensation in your physique. To deal with the nervousness, you are concerned in regards to the bodily symptom. You examine Google for hours for what the signs would possibly imply, asking household or buddies if these signs are regular, looking on-line for treatments, and even distracting your self with one thing else. Within the brief time period, you are feeling aid as a result of it looks like you’re drawback fixing.
However actually what you’re doing is feeding the concern and that results in extra nervousness over time. The truth is, most individuals fear about occasions which have a really low likelihood of occurring. True drawback fixing, alternatively, results in decision and a lower in nervousness.
Security Indicators – What Are They in Emotional Avoidance
One of the vital delicate avoidance methods it’s possible you’ll use in emotional avoidance is named a ‘security sign’. It’s something – a water bottle, a vital oil, a determine, a cell phone or different machine, or perhaps a particular individual or pet – you have to have with you to make you are feeling extra snug in a scenario that you simply understand as harmful.
Security indicators work by reinforcing the concept that conditions usually are not secure except you could have this object or individual with you. Many individuals situation themselves to handle intense feelings on this means. Because of this, when the article or individual shouldn’t be there for a perceived harmful / uncomfortable scenario, the limbic system is activated and intense feelings happen. As such, you be taught to affiliate feeling much less distressed along 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 brief time period however conserving security indicators with you maintains the depth of those feelings in the long run.
It may be obligatory at instances to have a assist individual with you in conditions which can be realistically difficult or harmful, equivalent to awaiting information from a physician or attending a parent-teacher convention, however some individuals with an emotional avoidance situation get so used to security indicators 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.