FEARIATRY, is a play from the book of "psychiatry"--as an overt word-game and conceptual connection between the two. "Feariatry" first coined by Desh Subba, the founder of philosophy of Fearism (see his 2014 classic book), knew on the one hand exactly what he was expressing with this 'call' to begin a new theory, study and practice of feariatry that would complement, if not some day replace, psychiatry as we know it. On the other hand, he did not know what feariatry would actually shape out like, and he wasn't going to lead that formation.
Subba is no psychiatrist or psychologist, and this raises the question: Who is he to be so rebelliously confident that the entire domain of psychology and psychiatry need to change?--and more so, need to transform their very identity and ways. It's a grand sweeping gesture for anyone to make. I loved it when I read it and had already intuited in my own work on fear and fearlessness that, indeed, there was something fundamentally wrong with these two fields and the BioMedical Paradigm they rely on, that is, if we ever want to truly have liberated humans and societies on this planet. Like Subba (and others), I was a quiet advocate for years to revision psychiatry and psychology--as they are accepted legitimate in the mainstream and by the State. In fact, they are 'the State' and its long-arm of intervention into how human beings 'should be' and how they should be fixed when they are no longer 'normal' (i.e., how they should be). This for me, is a very contested territory, and reaks with ideologies of "normal" and the control systems to maintain such. Yes, a politics of psychiatry and psychology cannot be ignored, in our search to better understand human behavior, etc.
I encourage people to read the reasons for Subba (2014) making the claim for a lot of changes in concepts, fields of inquiry and disciplines because of his discovery of the core nature and role of fear in life and human life in particular. Philosophy of Fearism was his beginning articulation of that primacy of "fear" and the valuation imperative that discovering fear as such one ought to revise everything--even change our language which has gone away from acknowledging this primacy of fear (e.g., see also the fearist Samuel Gillian's (2002, 2005) work on this loss of fear from the English language as a cover-up of distortion due to mind conditioning, propaganda and ideologies). The primacy of fear is the central philosophical and theoretical driver behind Subba, and myself, and our work in fear management/education.
BACK TO SUBBA and a fearism perspective (a fearist lens)--and, one now is reconfiguring psychiatry and psychology--based on the fear findings. It is a new awareness, a new paradigm of fear, that is being 'called' to bring about a better (hypothetically) psychiatry and psychology to the 21st century. I have totally got on board with this project too. FEARIATRY is particularly intriguing to me. You may search that term in the upper right box of the FM ning and you'll see some of my posts on feariatry over the years.
BACK TO PSYCHOANALYSIS--AND OTTO RANK (a post-Freudian psychoanalyst and theorist)-- as I have always liked Otto Rank since my reading of his work in the early 1980s, and off and on, I am now reading his 1941 book "Beyond Psychology" (also once named, in the text "beyond individual psychology"--but he also meant beyond social psychology as well)-- the Preface and first chapter pages of this book are intriguing. I kept writing in the margins just tonight that "this sounds like a good place to start a theory of feariatry" --and so on. Indeed, I find a good deal of his thought, experience and theorizing fascinating as grounds for a fearist-revisionist accounting of what psychiatry and psychology need to change. I will do another blogpost on this soon, but just wanted to give you all a heads-up, and to get you maybe starting to think about Feariatry with some seriousness--as it is one of the least developed paths/areas/pillars under the Philosophy of Fearism and Fearology trajectory (i.e., Subba-Fisher's work)...
A small hint: Rank is very big on bringing back to center (or at least to 'balance') "irrational" [1] along with "rational"--and, he believes that is the only way to human health, sanity and a good life worth living. He is a psychoanalyst who actually undermines psychoanalysis (and psychology generally) by the time he wrote this last very honest and penetrating critique in 1941--his last book before he died. For me, I see his 'call' for "beyond psychology" as exactly a route to foreshadowing a "feariatry" (and fearanalysis), etc. But Rank saw through this problem, and named "fear" and "fearless" as key players in his revisioning--so that very much excites me. Again, I'll write out more and cite his work in another blog soon.
End Note
1. By "irrational" he means just the same as "the natural" (e.g., "natural self"); in my theorizing, with my partner Dr. Barbara Bickel, we often call this "arational."
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So, one aspect of a non-professionalized feariatry (small 'f', although interlinked with a continuum of severity of fear effects and a professionalized Feariatry) is probably best articulated by the adult educator Bonaro Overstreet (1951/71) in her Chapter 7, of which I quote the first page of that chapter so you get a feel for the importance of fearwork (my term). Overstreet is a populus thinker/writer/educator and has made "fear" a major part of her life's work, and I have labeld her a proto-fearist thinker in this regard. She and I agree upon the premise that as a citizen we ought to be involved in feariatry work (i.e., interventions where we are capable)--by helping others and those around them understand when they are "fear-ridden" (I call "fear-based"); she wrote, "Dangerous Disguises: As we noted earlier, one reason why we have not made a more realistic [effective] attack upon fear [i.e., "fear-problem"] is that we have often failed to recognize it for what it is. We have responded to its disguises; not to that which is disguised. One unfortunate result of this is that we have overlooked many among us whohave needed help with fear problems. These people have seemed, to the indifferent [non feariatric] eye, to be doing all right; to be adequate enough; to be getting about as much out of life as most; even, in some cases, to be markedly successful. We have seen no reason to bother about them [i.e., they appear normal at first view]. Some, to be sure, we have rated as minor or major nuisances: weaklings, spongers, eccentrics and ego-centrics, or pompous bores. But we have seen no reason to bother about them either. It has been less irritating to pass by on the other side. [i.e., ignore their fear-neurosis]. A second unfortuante result is that we have often failed--even when dealing with those we care intimately about--to recognize these early symptoms of fear that might enable us, if we had an eye for them [critically discerning], to take preventive and remedial measures at a stage where such measures still lie well within our competence. It becomes, therefore, a matter of utmost practicality for us to know fear when we see it; for us to learn to penetrate at least its most common disguises. We need not bother about every disguise [of fear]. There is room for many of them within the general queerness of life. Certain disguises, however, are of destructive importance--chief among them fear disguised as strength, fear disguised as goodness, and fear disguised as love. These are all dangerous because they are all exploitive [powerful aspects in social behavior]: they all involve an effort on the part of the fear-ridden person to use other people as means to his own ends. They are all dangerous, morever, because they confuse us about the human qualities we most need to devel and trust. Our personal and common salvation may well depend upon th wide growth among us of [91] strength, goodness, and love; but e will not be sved either by honoring their limitations or by displacing to the genuine our dislike of the imitation."
I cannot think of a better introduction of why the need for feariatry, for fearwork, for fear education, etc.--everything that the fearist thinkers, like myself have been promoting for decades. Overstreet and her recognition of the critical and massive "fear-problem" is right on target. Those interested to know more about fear(ism) etc., have a lot to offer and feariatry is one channeling for that fearwork that can really do some good. The problem of "disguises of fear" is an epistemological problem, an ethical and social problem as well as a psychological and psychiatric (if not medical) problem. That's where we need to bring our holistic-integral thinking together on this all.
Overstreet, B. W. (1951/71). Understanding fear in ourselves and others. Perennial Library/Harper & Row.
One branch of criticism that Feariatry would pervay upfront (like a working hypothesis, if not a theory of health)--is the position that human civilization in its evolution has turned against itself--(meaning, against human nature and Nature herself). Cultural development has been the vehicle, with big-brain development enabling this "dissociation" of our animal and human aspects (meaning, the cultural and spiritual)... the complex story has been analyzed by many great critics and a number of them have concluded on the scale of evolutionary history, that the current civilization is dominated by a cultural dis-ease (if not a species disease)-- it is simply labeled "psychosis"-- of one kind or another. That is now the new "normal."
Yes, the Feariatry position would start with that working hypothesis. Another Feariatry move in this regard to foundational assumptions is to say that the cultural dis-ease is enabled by a 'fear'-based structure (formational system) of ongoing dissociation and insanity saturated by (toxic) fear/terror. Many psychoanalytic, existential, and others (like biologist Dr. Jeremy Griffith recently) have called this problem a mass "psychosis" (split)--in the conscious vs. unconscious mind and aspects of our being and existence. Will humans have the wherewithall to finally face (via fearlessness) this reality of our state condition that is ruling. If so, we can turn this dis-ease around.
Desh Subba wrote me an email in response: "Dear Michael,