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Not that I have been overly keen ever on how clinical psychology has constructed an approach to fear study and research, nonetheless, this field of inquiry cannot be dismissed easily, nor should its findings be ignored. However, they ought to be critiqued, and from many perspectives. 

"Fear" is hard enough to define, and even the psychologists have debated its definition over the decades if not longer. "Fear" for clinical psychology has always been divided into "normal fear" and "abnormal fear." Typically, the measures of such a distinction (categorization) is based on empirical easy to see parameters, like physiology and behaviors. The latter are analyzed as fitting a 'normal' pattern or not. Anything not 'normal' is considered a pathology, basically. 

But as reasonable and practical as that kind of binary distinction may appear on first sight, it raised the issue of what is "normal" and how would one actually know that "normal" at one time of history is truly "healthy" --as it seems to be assumed in clinical psychology discourse? Surely, "normal fears" are somehow developmentally, evolutionarily, and culturally normal because that's what most people go through. They are assumed as universal developmental stages of fears showing up and predominating at one point, then shifting to other fears at another developmental stage for humans. 

Now, the problem for me and many other critics of the psychology of fear (especially, the clinical biomedical schools of thought)--is that it is still not clear that normal fears are healthy and natural? What is the difference between "natural" and "normal"? And, typically, clinical psychology does not make that distinction and conflates those two concepts. Which I think is a deadly mistake, to put it bluntly. But, here in this blog I'll not cover my arguments for this problem and one can read my views on this elsewhere in my articles and books and videos over the years. I merely thought I would put up an article published in 2000, interestingly, which does a 100 years synopsis review of the literature on "normal fear" (meaning, normal fears people have developmentally). I'll let you decide for yourself the value of this, the good and the not so good uses of this kind of knowledge about fear. [my curiousity: how is "fearlessness" part of this clinical review? because, how can one look at fear without looking at fearlessness?] 

gullonenormalfear2000.pdf is by Gullone, E. (2000). The development of normal fear: A century of research. Clinical Psychology Review, 20(4), 429-51.

Challenging the Tendency of Elitism and "Grandiosity" in Movements

It was with some grief I found out a few years ago that Mariana Salcido, a signed 'member' of Fearlessness Movement, a loose member of Fearism philosophy group and curious advocate for The Fearology Institute, passed away suddenly. I heard this through another colleague who was communicating with her, and a family member informed him of her passing. She was relatively young, a mother, and left behind a lot of people who will miss her. I came across her in 2018 or earlier, and she wanted to discuss her way of getting involved in this fearwork. She was a fiesty born and raised Latino woman (living in the USA at the time) with a strong bright mind and critical view of how things ought to work better in this world. 

Just today, I found a correspondence with her that I wish to document on this archive of the Fearlessness Movement. It represents a piece of her philosophical challenges on a few different things but she was always one to see the critical importance of "fear" study and philosophy. This correspondence is one sample of many conversations on email I had with her, but I also knew she was struggling with many things in life, as so many young people do. 

I pick up her writing as part of a conversation she had around challenging the tendency to elitism and exclusivity for "the movement" be it labeled as "fearology" or even the Fearlessness Movement itself. She was pushing in a good way for us not to try to become a cult-like group of thinkers who encircle and keep telling the world how great we are and how much the world needs us, while forgetting to see we have our own biases and egos too. I asked her to write about this problem of "grandiosity" in any new intellectual or social movement, from her point of view. 

Mariana wrote, (June 15, 2018) not long before she died c. 2020: 

"The Bible spoke about fear hahahhaaa before anyone else! What is unique about this [Fearlessness Movement, Fearology, Fearism] is the approach. Fear has been traditionally, either used as a manner of control, spoken as an instinct (pretty lousy instinct that can be smelled by your predator, I wonder if it is not intended as a 'warning,' but, as evolutionary weakness); fear has also been used by 'motivators.' That is the worst, really.

I know the [Fearology] Institute seeks to release people from fear through consciousness. I like that, we can't teach everyone because some people won't want to be taught. Motivation is, I believe you made  this analogy, as easy to use as sex in public. I'm trying to imagine [Viktor] Frankl yelling at the people [in the concentration camps of Auschwitz] "Wake up! This is your time! You are successful! You can find a purpose!" 

I don't know how do you feel about motivational materials, as soon as I smell 'motivational' I send it away as far as possible from me. In the same line, fear is a good subject for psychology. But, I haven't seen anything serious on Philosophy of fear. What? What's philosophy?, they ask. Philosophy is how we tell people they are being manipulated. We tell them that when you catch them they say 'conspiracy theory,' we tell them that it is horrifying to be 'equal' (someone whould explain the omitted part 'before the law.')

IF WE ARE "EQUAL" as they understand WE ARE THREATENED TO DISAPPEAR AS AN INDIVIDUAL. How about showing that with real research but a smart apporach (no intellectual, no dumbed down). Flat. I need to research the old philosophy and see who speaks seriously and detailed about fear. 

Oh my...I'm sorry, too long. 

I feel like writing....

Hugs to both [RMF and Barbara] and thank you for a great conversation. -Mariana 

********

NOTE: Mariana contributed as blog post (poster) once: https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/fear-question

So there are many issues I am critical of when any Authority assigns itself to "protect" the people (often, meaning, protect the State power/authority/order): it is political as well as a psychological situation re: our health as citizens. Long ago researchers have shown that "shock doctrine" policies and "crisis" politics is a big power/business construction that is manipulative of people, mainly by using their fear and inserting (more or less) forms of authoritarian propaganda to add to the hypnosis of the moment when people are scared/terrified etc. There is basically a danger of transgressing (excessively) human rights in these situations of declared "emergency state" or "pandemic" etc. See one author who has snooped this out already around the coronavirus... https://nationalpost.com/opinion/marni-soupcoff-outbreaks-are-not-an-excuse-to-trample-on-our-rights.

As critical citizens, we have to be questioning of all Authority, no matter in what situation. One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist but one has to be vigilant to oppression that is subtle and systemic--and has been historically used against people's freedoms. For more background on mis-uses of "emergency time" constructions by Authorities and repercussions, see the great book by critical pedagogy Henry A. Giroux (2003). "The Abandoned Generation: Democracy Beyond the Culture of Fear" (NY: Palgrave/Macmillan). 

I am taking a fearanalysis perspective to challenge the ways we talk (or write and teach) about fear. This is embedded in an underlying context of a philosophy of fearism (Subba, Fisher) and thus is more philosophical than psychological. I'm currently writing a journal article introducing fearanalysis as a critical methodology for cultural studies and education.[1]  A small section of the article lays out a minimum of nine precepts one would have to in whole or part agree with to begin a learning of the basics of fearanalysis. Of course, one may not be so willing to entertain these and argue against them. I would at least like a person to engage them seriously and enter dialogue around them with me and/or others, especially to engage those who claim to be fearanalysts (of which I am, unfortunately, at this time one of a rare few).

Let me give the first two precepts for fearanalysis I wrote down in the article and then enter a discussion, using an example I found recently on the Internet of a coaching practitioner talking about fear. It could be nearly anyone who might say this kind of thing about fear, and so I have no need to name them. I have seen this type of talk a  hundred times in my years of researching "discourses" on fear.[2] Again, I come with a specialized fearanalysis perspective to the topic of fear and how we talk about it, which is a scholarly and theoretical perspective, where understandably not all practitioners have that specialization or scholarly interest. Rightfully so, practitioners are hired for pragmatic tasks by clients and want to be "effective" at what they do. I love to work with practitioners, I too am one as well, and see if I can assist them to expand their practices and become more conscious of how they talk about fear. 

Two Precepts

At a minimum, in order to understand what fearanalysis is based on, the following nine precepts are core (not the only) foundations:

(a) avoid the habitual over-emphasis on discussion of fears (i.e., fear of x, y, z), phobias, etc. and conflating this knowledge with understanding the nature and role of fear itself and the even more complex conceptualization of fearism

(b) ensure multiple perspectives are examined on the topic fear, interdisciplinary, including populist accounts, but preferably transdisciplinary is useful

Two Examples of a discourse on fear that falls (somewhat) short of the criteria above. I quote from an Internet blog by a contemporary practitioner (coach/trainer):

1. "The sub-conscious mind is the home of those fears that are largely unconscious and which are driving up to 95% of our behavior. Trust me when I say that, after coaching hundreds of individuals, the fears are within all of us. I'm not good enough, I'm going to be found out, I don't fit in are just a few that simmer below the surface of our existence.... [and often, due to guilt, a cousin of fear, people would rather not face this truth] "I see it all the time, never more clearly than with 'spiritual' types... those who want to ignore or escape from the deepest shadows of fear by putting on a religious or spiritual facade. I understand. I, too, can adopt the facade. You see, it takes courage, tremendous courage to look at the fear. And then we discover that it truly is illusory." [bold added for emphasis]

[The above quote indicates the topic is circulating around the "sub-conscious mind" which is interrelated, rightfully so, to "the deepest shadows of fear" and yet instead of focusing on fear itself and a more complex conception of fearism, the primary text emphasis is on fears (fear of x, y, z) etc. What is most promising is the interest to explore the sub-conscious, unconscious realms of awareness and unawareness, which is where we will come to have to examine fear itself as the topic and begin to see that all our fears individually and collectively, are still "fears" and thus not all that useful, other than as surface symptoms, for understanding the dynamics of fear itself and fearism dynamics which are less visible and knowable at first but with good fearanalsyis (even psychoanalysis) can be revealed and be seen to be themselves symptoms of even greater unconscious realms of what I call the 'Fear' Project or 'Fear' Matrix, "culture of fear" etc. ]

2. "I 'get' what you mean about two different ways of using fearism [3]... at least I think I do. To use some cliche's, there are always two sides to a coin. Nothing is all good or all bad. No matter how you flip it, a pancake has two sides. (I can digress.) There are some fears that serve us in a healthy way; others are destructive. The most destructive are often buried deep within the subconscious mind, driving our behaviors despite our finest conscious intentions."

[The above quote indicates a reasonable first off-the-cuff interpretation of how Subba and I use fearism, however, it then slides into cliche's and that will in all likelihood lead to misinterpretation somewhat, as is the case above in its brevity of analogies. I am very familiar with the dialectic nature of the philosophies in Taoism and other nondual forms of thinking, yet, the common maneuver of a psychology of fear discourse is to quickly drop the philosophical part of the framing of fearism which is a good start of possibilities, then to reduce it to "fears" in making the analogy the author wishes to validate. This is chronically a problem I see where there is a categorical error enacted philosophically by taking a very complex construct "fearism" (in this case) and reducing it not only to "fear itself" (which would be less of an error) but then goes all the way down to the simplest construct of "fears." As I said before, nearly every book and article (almost) that talks about fear makes this same categorical error continuously. The error as well based on the two precepts above, is the beginning to talk about sub-conscious and unconscious shadows of fear, and yet the discourse stays within the dominating psychology of fear, and historical, cultural, political aspects (e.g., necessary in talking about fear itself and fearism) are left out. I believe all these tend to inhibit the full-potential of a good fearanalysis. Which is not to say the thinking and practice of such a practitioner and their discourse is unvaluable.]

A Take Away

When we talk about "fear" in any way, realize that when we do so in the public sphere (e.g., the Internet, a conversation, etc.), we are public and thus are engaging in what scholars today call a form of "public pedagogy." Typically, if not trained to thinking critically about our pedagogies, then we can spread knowledge very rapidly in the public and digital worlds without always thinking so carefully about what we are actually teaching and what that teaching (and its "discourses") are actually doing. For a fully ethical practice of public pedagogy, especially on the topic of fear, I propose that we begin to examine the problematic of switching categorical differences in knowledge about fear-- and the most basic way is to acknowledge the increasing complexity of holarchical order of constructs from fears to fear itself to fearism.[4]

Notes:

1. The journal article is entitled: "Invoking Fearanalysis: A New Methodology Applied to Wicked Problems and Paradigm Shifts in the Anthropocene."

2. "Discourse" is a particular complex construct used by academics in various ways, but it always more or less refers to the way people, organizations, etc. 'talk about' a topic and it can be thus analyzed as a pattern of communications based on a set of underlying assumptions and values, beliefs, worldviews and what are called historical and ideological discourse formations. Point is, we humans may think we are talking about our experience as if it is ours and we made it up entirely and are communicating it as if there are no influencing historical, political, and philosophical sources to the discourse formation. This has been shown to be a naive view of our selves and how we talk. Philosophers like Michel Foucault have well shown how discourses are knowledge-power entities (formations, patterns) that 'stick' together over time in cultures and are used by people to gain certain privilege and power in their knowledge assertions. Typically, they do not know they are carrying these (like memes), nor are we usually aware of how Discourses (with a capital 'D') actually are using us as their agents to pass on certain knowledge in certain ways. I have studied what is called a method of critical discourse analysis for many years now, and it tends to come into all my critiques.

3. This was a reply to my post on their blog about how Subba and I have two different ways of conceptualizing fearism (one more healthy, one not so because it is a pathology).

4. I would include my own notion of 'fear' in that spectrum of complexity between fear itself and fearism.