ANXIETY DISORDERS/FEAR OF INSANITY: DISSOCIATION
The fear of insanity is the second most common fear. We all try to get control over what is happening to us and the harder we fight, the worse we get.
Trying to understand what is happening to us continually pushes us to the limits of our knowledge. We cannot find anything in our past experience that even comes close to what we are experiencing now, so many of us feel we are going insane.
We’re not, although it often feels like it. Some of the other symptoms we experience don’t help to break this fear; they usually add to it.
The role dissociation plays in anxiety disorders is now being examined. From what I have found over the years, the ability to dissociate is found in a large subgroup of people who experience spontaneous panic attacks. Dissociation can also be described as altered or discrete states of consciousness or trance states. Altered or trance states are found in many cultures. They can be an ‘accepted expression of cultural or religious experience in many societies’ (APA 1994). A leading expert in altered or discrete states, Dr Charles Tart (1972) comments that many other cultures, ‘believe that almost every normal adult has the ability to go into a trance state’.
Individuals in other societies induce trance states not only by meditation, but by fasting, sleep deprivation and other forms of physiological stress. For those of us who have the ability to dissociate, major stress can make us more vulnerable to dissociation, or the stress can be a cause of our not eating properly or of losing sleep, which in turn increases our vulnerability to dissociate.
The ability to dissociate is not harmful in itself, but our lack of understanding* of the phenomena can lead to acute anxiety and panic. Although some people with panic disorder report they are not frightened of these sensations, others are, and the fear contributes to the feeling of going insane or loss of control.
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