2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
A 38-year-old man, let's call him Ivan, turned for help with complaints of obsessive fear for his children 5 and 10 years old.
According to Ivan:
“I cannot stop being afraid that some kind of trouble will happen to the children. Because of this, I am in constant tension, all the time expecting the worst. Scary scenes of children being traumatized, falling out of the balcony, being hit by a car and other horrors are drawn in my imagination. It got to the point that in the middle of the night I go into their room several times to check that everything is in order. In addition, it is very difficult for me to let the children go to kindergarten and school, I am worried that there may be something with them too- then happen.
I understand that this is a completely abnormal situation. What do i do? How do you get rid of these fears?"
I worked with Ivan in an integrative approach, combining methods of cognitive-behavioral therapy and psychoanalytic therapy.
We conducted several exposition sessions with him. The fear became less pronounced, but the tension still persisted.
Then I asked Ivan to imagine that the worst thing happened, his fears came true. Before that, I convinced the man that it is better to work through his fear and get rid of oppressive ideas in a timely manner than they would constantly haunt and torment him.
Ivan, with my support, lost the terrible situation before it was over, despite the previous resistance. Then I asked to imagine the positive and negative sides of life without children.
The man noted on the positive side, unexpectedly for himself, that he would no longer be constrained by a sense of duty and responsibility, and he could afford a love relationship with another woman.
Thoughts about an intimate relationship with a work colleague went along with fears for children, but he was afraid to admit this desire to himself first because of a strong sense of guilt before his family and catastrophized the consequences of the unfortunate betrayal.
Since childhood, Ivan was somewhat suspicious and anxious. Firewood was thrown into this "neurotic furnace" by his mother, being able to present the most common situations as a possible catastrophe.
Ivan experienced a neurotic conflict between a sense of duty and sexual urges. The desire was so strong that sometimes the thought slipped through: "How nice it would be if I were free! I could build a relationship with the woman to whom I am so attracted."
But these thoughts caused an intolerable feeling of guilt, as a result of which guilt was supplanted, and neurotic fear and control became, in a way, overcompensation of guilt, a kind of punishment.
The next step was to work out guilt for potential treason.
Ivan, like any neurotic person, blamed himself for the mere thought of deviating from his moral duty. This intrapersonal conflict created a large clot of tension throughout his body.
I managed to convince him that you can think bad thoughts, while doing good deeds, that thoughts alone do not make us guilty, that it is pointless to reproach ourselves for something that has not happened yet and not the fact that it will happen.
Ivan calmed down and allowed himself to fantasize about the relationship with that woman and even imagine their life together. As a result, he came to the conclusion that a work colleague is not suitable for him for life, and the maximum that he would like is to have sex with her once in order to "close the gestalt."
The result of our work was that instead of neurotic reactions, Ivan learned constructive coping of coping with stress.
At the end of several sessions, Ivan said that fears no longer bother him.
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