Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  She looks at me momentarily, but then averts her gaze downward to the floor. Slowly she looks upward, contacting my eyes. A single tear rolls down her cheek. “Yes that’s right, I don’t feel so scared … In some ways I feel a little excited … Yes I want to go on … It’s scary, but I think I can do it … I just need some help … your help.” More tears stream from her eyes. Her words stumble as she chokes: “It’s hard for me to ask … It feels emotional … I don’t think I have so much experience in asking for help.” This acknowledgment lets me know that the social engagement system is operative, and that deeper exploration is possible. “Yes, I’m glad to give you support,” I respond. When I ask her if she has any ideas of what kind of support might be helpful, she responds that just to do what I’ve been doing is what she wants. I ask her to be more specific. “I’m not sure,” she says. “Actually, I think it has to do with feeling that you’re here, here for me. When you give me feedback, that helps keep me in touch with what I feel … in a way with who I am.” “When you say that,”—I see her face relax—“you seem to let go more deeply.” Miriam smiles, and I continue, “It’s different than a few minutes ago, when you spoke of not having had the experience of asking for help.” “Yes,” she adds, “it’s really different to ask you for support in helping me to learn how to be there for myself … That way I don’t feel less than you, I feel more equal … I like that … I feel like if I didn’t want to do something that you suggested to do, I could tell you that now.” Without prompting, Miriam holds out her arms and hands again and sweeps them around in a horizontal semicircle. “Yes, these are my boundaries. I can set my limits—that feels good … and I can tell you what I need.” We both smile. Miriam closes her eyes and sits quietly for several minutes. While it may seem simplistic, having the actual, kinesthetic, proprioceptive experience of being able to form and hold boundaries gives Miriam a significant physical experience that contradicts the pervasive sense of powerlessness that has driven her perception of the world. Rather than being folded defensively across her chest, her arms now lie resting on her legs—exemplifying a more open stance and a willingness to look inward.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  playing. I knew it wasn’t a game but I didn’t know what it was, so I kept the promises he extracted from me to say nothing to her. One afternoon near Christmas we missed her. She was not among the people who left when the building closed. Roy waited for a while, peering up at the darkened windows, watching the guard lock the doors. Then he panicked. He threw the Jeep into gear and sped around the block. He stopped in front of the building again. He turned off the engine and began whispering to himself. “Yes,” he said, “okay, okay,” and turned the engine back on. He drove around the block one more time and then tore down the neighboring streets, alternately slamming on the brakes and gunning the engine, his cheeks wet with tears, his lips moving like a supplicant’s. This had all happened before, in Sarasota, and I knew better than to say anything. I just held onto the passenger grip and tried to look normal. Finally he came to a stop. We sat there for a few minutes. When he seemed better I asked if we could go home. He nodded without looking at me, then took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket, blew his nose, and put the handkerchief away. My mother was cooking dinner and listening to carols when we came in. The windows were all steamed up. Roy watched me go over to the stove and lean against her. He kept looking at me until I looked at him. Then he winked. I knew he wanted me to wink back, and I also knew that it would somehow put me on his side if I did. My mother hung one arm around my shoulders while she stirred the sauce. A glass of beer stood on the counter next to her. “So how was archery?” she asked. “Okay,” I said. “Fine.” Roy said, “We went out afterwards and shot a few bottles. Then we went tomcatting.” “Tomcatting,” my mother repeated coldly. She hated the word. Roy leaned against the refrigerator. “Busy day?” “Real busy. Hectic.” “Not a minute to spare, huh?” “They kept us hopping,” she said. She took a sip of beer and licked her lips.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  And while they are migrating into each other’s respective worlds, they have not yet taken full residence; they are still two distinct entities. It is all the space between them that allows them to imagine no space at all. They are still enthralled by the encounter, and they have not yet consolidated their relationship. In the beginning you can focus on the connection because the psychological distance is already there; it’s a part of the structure. Otherness is a fact. You don’t need to cultivate separateness in the early stages of falling in love; you still are separate. You aim to overcome that separateness. As new lovers, John and Beatrice enjoyed a built-in distance that allowed them to experience the confluence of love and desire freely, exempt from the conflicts they would bring to therapy later. Entrapment Deadens Desire For John, intimacy harbors a threat of entrapment. He grew up in a home with an alcoholic, abusive father. He can’t remember a time when he wasn’t acutely attuned to both his father’s moods and his mother’s sadness. As a young boy he was recruited to be his mother’s emotional caretaker, and to alleviate her loneliness. He was her hope, her solace, a vicarious affirmation that her miserable life would be vindicated through her marvelous son. Children of such conflicted marriages are often enlisted to protect the vulnerable parent. John has never doubted his mother’s deep love for him; nor has the love ever been without a sense of burden. From early on, love implied responsibility and obligation. And even while he craves the closeness of intimacy— he has always had a woman in his life—he doesn’t know how to experience love in a way that does not feel confining. The emerging love he feels for Beatrice carries with it the same heaviness that love has always had for him. There are many circumstances that can lead people to experience love and intimacy as constricting—an unhappy childhood is not a prerequisite. Popular love talk has made a real case for thinking of this as a “fear of intimacy,” which is seen as afflicting men in particular. But what I observe is not so much a reluctance to engage in intimate bonding—no one can doubt John’s deep involvement with Beatrice. Rather it is the weightiness of that involvement that these people find overbearing. Foreclosing the necessary freedom and spontaneity that eros demands, they feel trapped by intimacy. John’s sexual inhibitions are exacerbated as his emotional involvement with his girlfriend deepens. As a matter of fact, the more he cares about her, the less he can freely lust after her. For him, as for many other men in this predicament, erotic shutdown is not subtle. He is at the mercy of a stubborn penis that simply will not respond. But why?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  If the initial shadow had been from a raging grizzly bear (rather than from a rising eagle), a very different reaction would have been evoked: the preparation to flee. This is not, as James discovered, because we think “bear,” evaluate it as dangerous and then run. It is because the contours and features of the large, looming, approaching animal cast a particular light pattern upon the retina of the eye. This stimulates a configuration of neural firing that is registered in the phylogenetically primitive brain regions. This “pattern recognition” triggers, in turn, the preparation for defensive responding before it is registered in consciousness.† These unconscious responses derive from genetic predispositions (as well as from the outcomes of previous personal experiences with similar large animals). Primitive, nonconscious circuits are activated, triggering preset constellations or tendencies of defensive posturing. Muscles, viscera and autonomic nervous system activity cooperate in preparing for escape. This preparation is sensed kinesthetically and is internally joined, as a gestalt, to the image of the bear. Preparation for defensive movement and image are fused and registered together as the feeling of danger. Motivated by this feeling and not by fear, we continue to scan for more information (a grove of trees, some rocks) while at the same time drawing on our ancestral and personal memory banks. Probabilities are nonconsciously computed, based on such encounters over millions of years of species evolution, as well as on what we have learned individually does or does not work. We prepare for the next phase in this unfolding drama. Without thinking, we orient toward a large tree with low branches. An urge is experienced to flee and climb. If we run, freely oriented toward the tree, we have the feeling of directed running. The urge to run (experienced as the feeling of danger) is followed by successful running (experienced as escape rather than fear or anxiety). On the other hand, let us consider a situation where escape is impossible—where you are trapped. This time you chance upon a starved or wounded bear standing in the path and blocking your escape (as in walking out of a steep box canyon). In this case, the defensive preparedness for flight, concomitant with the feeling of danger, is thwarted. The feeling of danger will then abruptly change into the emotional state of fear. Response is now restricted to non-directed, desperate flight, to rage-counterattack or to freeze-collapse. The latter affords the possibility of diminishing the bear’s urge to attack. If it is not cornered or hurt, and is able to clearly identify the human being as helpless and of no threat, the bear usually will not attack the intruder, going on its own way.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  To effectively guide the processes of healing and transformation in their clients, therapists must be able to perceive and track the physiological footprints and expressions of these organismic systems. Since each of the hierarchical polyvagal systems has its own unique pattern of autonomic and muscular expressions, therapists need to perceive these indicators—skin color, breathing, postural signs and facial expressions—in order to determine the stage (immobilization, hyperarousal or social engagement) their clients are in and when they are transitioning to another. As we saw with Nancy in Chapter 2, a patient can undergo a wild roller-coaster ride between the three evolutionary subsystems, which demand parallel changes in strategy.d When, for example, the individual is in sympathetic hyperarousal, the therapist can observe a tightening of the muscles in the front of the neck (particularly the anterior scalenes, the sternocleidomastoids and the upper shoulder muscles), a stiffened posture, a general jumpiness, darting eyes, an increase in heart rate (which can be seen in the carotid artery in the front of the neck), dilation (widening) of the pupils, choppy rapid breathing and coldness in the hands, which may appear bluish particularly at the finger tips, as well as pale skin and cold sweat in the hands and forehead. On the other hand, a person going into shutdown often collapses (as though slumping in the diaphragm) and has fixed or spaced-out eyes, markedly reduced breathing, an abrupt slowing and feebleness of heart rate, and a constriction of the pupils. In addition, the skin often turns a pasty, sickly white or even gray. And, finally, the person who is socially engaged has a resting heart rate in the low to mid-seventies, relaxed full breathing, pleasantly warm hands and a mild to moderate pupil aperture. Therapists are rarely trained to make such observations (though they can get a little coaching from watching episodes of the TV series Lie to Me). Of the three primary instinctual defense systems, the immobility state is controlled by the most primitive of the physiological subsystems. This neural system (mediated by the unmyelinated portion of the vagus nerve) controls energy conservation and is triggered only when a person perceives that death is imminent64—whether from outside, in the form of a mortal threat, or when the threat originates internally, as from illness or serious injury.e Both of these challenges require that one hold still and conserve one’s vital energy. When this most archaic system dominates, one does not move; one barely breathes; one’s voice is choked off; and one is too scared to cry. One remains motionless in preparation for either death or cellular restitution.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. Chrys. Hom. 79. in Matt.) The Chief Priests set about their impious deed on the feast, as it follows, And the Chief Priests and Scribes, &c. Moses ordained only one Priest, at whose death another was to be appointed. But at that time, when the Jewish customs had begun to fall away, there were many made every year. These then wishing to kill Jesus, are not afraid of God, lest in truth the holy time should aggravate the pollution of their sin, but every where fear man. Hence it follows, For they feared the people. BEDE. Not indeed that they apprehended sedition, but were afraid lest by the interference of the people He should be taken out of their hands. And these things Matthew reports to have taken place two days before the Passover, when they were assembled in the judgment hall of Caiaphas. 22:3–63. Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. 4. And he went his way, and communed with the Chief Priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them. 5. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. 6. And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. THEOPHYLACT. Having already said that the Chief Priests sought means how they might slay Jesus without incurring any danger, he next goes on to relate the means which occurred to them, as it is said, Then entered Satan into Judas. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. Satan entered into Judas not by force, but finding the door open. For forgetful of all that he had seen, Judas now turned his thoughts solely to covetousness. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. 80. in Matt.) St. Luke gives his surname, because there was another Judas. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. And he adds, one of the twelve, since he made up the number, though he did not truly discharge the Apostolic office. Or the Evangelist adds this, as it were for contrast sake. As if he said, “He was of the first band of those who were especially chosen.” BEDE. There is nothing contrary to this in what John says, that after the sop Satan entered into Judas; seeing he now entered into him as a stranger, but then as his own, whom he might lead after him to do whatsoever he willed. CHRYSOSTOM. (ut sup.) Observe the exceeding iniquity of Judas, that he both sets out by himself, and that he does this for gain. It follows, And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains. THEOPHYLACT. The magistrates here mentioned were those appointed to take care of the buildings of the temple, or it may be those whom the Romans had set over the people to keep them from breaking forth into tumult; for they were seditious.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  The mood was changing as the chant broke down and became something less choate and more animalistic, hisses and boos, and then I felt the pressure to move again, not in the same direction as before but toward the building and the line of police guarding it. The police felt it too, that pressure, they came to attention, lifting their shields an inch or two and locking them in place. I said something then, This could be bad or something to that effect, and I felt M.’s hand on my arm, though she couldn’t have heard what I said, there was too much noise and anyway I had whispered it, I was saying it mostly to myself. Points of red light were tracing patterns on the building’s concrete façade, people had brought laser pointers, which were harmless of course and also sinister, they aimed them like the laser sights of rifles. The sound of the crowd grew louder, that inchoate sound, formless and primal, inhuman, hardly animal now but primordial, chthonic, like a sound the earth would make. It wasn’t an animal sound but it elicited an animal response, or did for me, anyway, a fear that would have made me run had there been anywhere to run to, that instead made me grow very still. At the front of the crowd now, facing the police, six or seven men in Guy Fawkes masks had suddenly appeared. The masks seemed like an invitation to violence, to commit it or be subjected to it, and I thought I could see the police they were facing lean forward as if to meet them. There was the sound of glass breaking, a bottle thrown over the heads of the police, and almost at the same time a weird crackling and sudden fluorescence of flat red light. Someone behind us had lit a flare, and in response the noise died down, as if everyone had taken a breath. But the pressure I had felt didn’t dissipate, in the suspension of our breath it mounted and became unbearable, demanding release, and though we didn’t quite move it was as if everyone leaned very slightly forward, a wave on the brink of cresting. We hung fire, that’s what it felt like, that phrase from nineteenth-century novels I had never quite understood, I understood it now.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  A couple of blocks ahead the march had turned another corner, and this created a kind of bottleneck, slowing everything down further. The street was poorly lit, we were in darkness again, and now there were more police; they lined one side of the street, with their helmets on and their plastic shields raised. What’s going on, I asked M., and she told me that we were approaching the headquarters of the Socialist Party, that every night the march took that route. There was another battery of air horns ahead of us, not as loud as the first but loud enough, the sound reverberated in the little street. It was an old street, with elegant, turn-of-the-century houses and even older dwellings, squat and unadorned, which had escaped the bombs of World War II and the building initiatives of the Communists and now were on the point of collapse. We were packed together now, barely moving though I still felt the impulse to move, the impulse of the crowd behind me. We were penned in, almost brushing shoulders with the people beside us, and I felt M. draw closer to me. We inched forward, and then the noise began again just in front of us, and everyone around me started shouting as they turned to face a long building of concrete and glass, five or six stories high. Only the sculpture in front of it marked it out, I had passed it before without paying much attention to the building it adorned. It showed seven or eight figures in battle, some taking aim with rifles, others cradling fallen comrades, the whole dominated by a large, stylized figure of a woman on one knee, her arm flung forward, the fingers outstretched in a gesture that had always seemed moving to me, more moving now that she was outlined by the single lit window of a convenience store behind her. The march had come to a standstill, people were yelling cherveni boklutsi again and again as they shook their fists, suddenly a man standing right beside me sounded his air horn. Jesus, I must have said, covering my ear and shaking my head a little like an animal, and M. looked up at me, concerned.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Meanwhile his hands, which were quite large as I have said, and clawed, crudely rubbed my tender skin, slowly working their way to my breasts. To my surprise, my nipples immediately responded, hardening under his touch. A moan escaped my lips as he squeezed them; the brute force of his hands combined with my own continually growing desire was agonizing. He continued to touch me and, when he reached the place between my legs, I felt a wave of shame as my own excitement became evident. The Beast was now changing rapidly; with each passing moment he was becoming more like a beast and less like a man. “On your knees,” he grunted, between heavy breaths. I stared at him, speechless. The reality of what was happening suddenly dawned on me. He would take me just as he would an animal. It was too late to change my mind, however, for he was already brusquely maneuvering my body into the position he commanded right there on the floor. He did this so swiftly and efficiently that I had no doubt left about his strength, or the futility of my trying to escape. I remained motionless where he placed me for several moments, while the Beast, meanwhile, hastily worked behind me to remove his clothing. Still too frightened to risk angering the Beast by turning to look at him, I could only wonder frantically what lay behind the elaborate garments the Beast took such pains to hide himself in. But my curiosity eventually got the better of my fears and, almost without my willing it to, my head turned in the Beast’s direction. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips. The Beast was unclothed, except for his shirt, which hung open, revealing a torso that was covered in coarse animal hair. From the waist down his body resembled that of a lion’s, with two huge paws for feet, and a long tail that hung to the floor. But even more frightening than anything I have described so far was the object that jutted out just below his waistline. It was of a deep reddish purple color and inhuman in size. I was certain that I would never be able to withstand it. The Beast heard my gasp and caught sight of me staring at him in horror. He let out a terrible roar that had only the smallest resemblance to the words, “Turn around!” “You will kill me!” I cried, in real terror, even as I obeyed his harsh command. “I promise you will live,” he replied, with a sudden return to his former gentleness. His voice trembled with his effort to speak. “This is the way it must be until you free us both from this fate.” I was bewildered by his words, but I had no time to dwell on them, for suddenly I felt his breath, hot as steam, between my legs. Even with this warning, I was completely unprepared for what followed.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The indigenous peoples throughout South America and Mesoamerica have long understood both the nature of fear and the essence of trauma. What’s more, they seemed to know how to transform it through their shamanic healing rituals. After colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese, the indigenous peoples borrowed their word susto to describe what happens in trauma. Susto translates graphically as “fright paralysis” and as “soul loss.”10 Anyone who has suffered a trauma knows, first, paralyzing fright, followed by the bereft feeling of losing your way in the world, of being severed from your very soul. When we hear the term fright paralysis, we may think of a startled deer, stunned motionless by oncoming headlights. Humans react similarly to trauma: thus Nancy, her startled face wide-eyed and frozen in fear. The ancient Greeks also identified trauma as being paralyzing and corporeal. Zeus and Pan were invoked to instill terror and paralysis in the enemy during times of war. Both had the capacity to “freeze” the body and induce “pan-ic.” And in the great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, trauma was portrayed as ruthlessly destructive to self and families. By the time of the American Civil War—when young men were suddenly exposed to their comrades being blown into pieces by cannon fire; to the noise and terror of chaos; and to stinking, rotting corpses far beyond anything they were prepared for—the term used to describe traumatic post-combat breakdown was soldier’s heart.* This name conveyed both the anxious, arrhythmic heart, pounding in sleepless terror, as well as the heartbreak of war, the killing of brothers by brothers. Another term from the Civil War era was nostalgia, perhaps a reference to the unending weeping and inability to remain oriented to the present and go on with life. Shortly before World War I, Emil Kraepelin, in an early diagnostic system published around 1909, called such stress breakdown “fright neurosis.”11 After Freud, he recognized trauma as a condition arising from an overwhelming stress. Freud had defined trauma as “a breach in the protective barrier against stimulation [(over)stimulation—my addition], leading to feelings of overwhelming helplessness.” Kraepelin’s definition was largely lost in the nomenclature of trauma, yet it recognized the central aspect of fright—although the word “neurosis” has pejorative associations. In the wake of World War I, combat trauma was reincarnated as shell shock, simple, honest and direct. This bluntly descriptive phrase almost resounds like the maddening explosions of shells, shattering the stunned and trapped men into shaking, urinating and defecating uncontrollably in the cold, wet trenches. Like susto, this raw descriptive term had nothing distancing, dispassionate or disinfected about it.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Rather than pretense, though, it is a deadly serious innate biological tactic. With a slow, small animal like the opossum, flight or fight is unlikely to be successful. By passively resisting, in the grand tradition of Gandhi, the animal’s inertness tends to inhibit the predator’s aggression and reduce its urge to kill and to eat. In addition, a motionless animal is frequently abandoned (especially when it also emits a putrid odor like rotting meat) and not eaten by such predators as the coyote—unless, of course, this animal is very hungry. a With such “death feigning,” the opossum may live to escape, plodding along into another day. Similarly, the cheetah may drag its motionless prey to a safe place, removed from potential competitors, and return to her lair to fetch her cubs (so as to share the kill with them). While she is gone, the gazelle may awaken from its paralysis and, in an unguarded moment, make a hasty escape. Second, immobility affords a certain degree of invisibility: an inert body is much less likely to be seen by a predator. Third, immobility may promote group survival: when hunted by a predator pack, the collapse of one individual may distract the pack long enough for the rest of the herd to escape. Last, but by no means least, a fourth biological function of immobility is that it triggers a profoundly altered state of numbing. In this state, extreme pain and terror are dulled: so if the animal does survive an attack it will be, even though injured, less encumbered by debilitating pain and thus possibly able to escape if the opportunity arises. This “humane” analgesic effect is mediated by the flooding of endorphins, the body’s own profound morphine pain-relief system. 21 For the gazelle, this means that it will not have to suffer the full agony of being torn apart by the cheetah’s sharp teeth and claws. The same is most likely true for a rape or accident victim. 22 In this state of analgesia, the victim may witness the event as though from outside his or her body, as if it were happening to someone else (as I observed in my accident). Such distancing, called dissociation , helps to make the unbearable bearable. The African explorer David Livingstone graphically recorded such an experience in his encounter with a lion on the plains of Africa: I heard a shout. Startled, in looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Similarly, in deep sleep, we surrender ourselves profoundly to the interoceptive world. Automatic visceral activities regulate and sustain life far outside our realm of awareness. Respiration, heartbeat, temperature and blood chemistry are all maintained within the narrow range that supports life. This internal world usually resides at or beyond the outer reaches of conscious awareness. While awake we may not be aware of this inner world, but it is possible to entice it from far background to near background and then gently seduce it, if only fleetingly, into the foreground of our awareness. Let us proceed. Going Inside: Adventures in Interoception Preface It takes one to stand in the dark alone. It takes two to let the light shine through. —Motown song The following few exercises can be done alone, but as mammals the very stability of our nervous systems depends on the support from a safe other. This was the case of the pediatrician attending to my desperate need right after my grave misfortune described in Chapter 1 . By myself, I could have possibly done some of what I did to recover my equilibrium after the accident, but it made an enormous difference to have her sitting quietly by my side. Her stable presence made it more possible for me to stay focused and not swallowed in fear, bereft in sorrow and utterly alone. The following exercises can be practiced alone but are more fruitfully practiced in the presence of another person. Exercise 1: Wandering Inward Awareness on the body as a whole is the object of this initial exercise. Let your attention leisurely wander through every part of your body. Without judgment of good/bad or right/wrong, simply note what parts you are able to feel. To what degree does your body exist for you? Initially, you may be surprised that you do not actually feel a part of your body, even an area as large as your pelvis or legs. Of the parts of the body that you do feel, you will, at first, probably be mostly aware of uncomfortable, tight and painful areas. You may also feel twinges and twitches; these uncomfortable feelings may turn out to be an entry to the deeper sensing of your body. Next bring your attention to muscular tensions. Attend to them without trying to do something with them. You may want to try and relax them prematurely. It is important, rather, to just let the tensions remain and follow them as they change spontaneously. Notice , now, your skin sensations: can you feel your body as a whole? Can you feel where your head is in relation to your neck and shoulders? Can you feel your chest—from front to back, how does your breathing feel? Can you sense whether it feels full and easy or whether it may get “stuck” in your chest, throat or belly? Do you sense your ribs expanding and contracting with your breath?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Taking the PlungeWhen the first plane hit the building, only ten stories above her office, the explosion sent a shock wave of terror through her body. People’s immediate reaction to such terrifying events is to arrest, orient and then escape. This usually entails an intense urge to run. However, trapped eighty stories above ground with thousands of other people, Sharon needed to inhibit this primal reaction. Against the intense impulses to flee, she compelled herself to stay “calm” and walk in an orderly line down the stairs along with dozens of other terrified individuals; this was the case even though her body was “adrenaline-charged” to run at full throttle. Surely Sharon also felt the potential for any one of the other trapped office workers to suddenly panic and start a stampede that would further imperil them all. They, like her, also had to restrain their powerful primal urge to run. As Sharon slowly recounts the details of the escape, while feeling her bodily response, step-by-step, she recalls encountering yet another moment of stark terror when she found the door at the seventieth floor locked and impassable. Because of the physical comfort she found in contacting the spontaneous, expansive gestures and the images of the Hudson River, I now trust that Sharon can more safely face some of this highly charged material without becoming overwhelmed and consequently retraumatized.f In following her “body story,” islands of safety (Steps 1 through 3 in Chapter 5) are beginning to form in Sharon’s stormy trauma sea. The safety experienced from these internal islands allows her to deal with increasing levels of arousal and to move through them without undue distress. From this assessment, I guide her back to the moment of the explosion and then have her locate where and how that violent imprint feels in her body. As she attends to this “felt sense,” she becomes aware of an overall feeling of agitation in her legs and arms and tight “lumps” in her gut and throat. She says that she feels stuck. Here I introduce her to using the “voo” sound as a way to help her dissolve and transform the stuck sensations (see Chapter 6). As she focuses on those uncomfortable physical sensations (with the help of the vibratory sounds), the inclination to try to understand or explain them is reduced. With keenly focused attention, I guide her away from interpreting what she is feeling because I do not want the meaning to come from a mental place. The body needs to tell what’s on its “mind” first in order for new perceptions to arise in present time. (This warning about “premature cognition” was displayed on a bumper sticker I recently saw: “Reality: It’s not what you think!”)

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  I feel alternating waves of fear and sorrow. (20. This discharge in waves allows for the natural experience of pendulation—expansions/contraction as discussed in Step 3 in Chapter 5 —and softens the feelings of sorrow and fear.) It comes to me as a stark possibility that I may be seriously injured. (21. It is part of a mammalian response to injury to scan the body and to assess the nature and level of the injury.) Perhaps I will end up in a wheelchair, crippled and dependent. Again, deep waves of sorrow flood me. I’m afraid of being swallowed up by the sorrow and hold onto the woman’s eyes. (22. I am now actively engaging the woman as a resource.) A slower breath brings me the scent of her perfume. Her continued presence sustains me. As I feel less overwhelmed, my fear softens and begins to subside. I feel a flicker of hope, then a rolling wave of rage. (23. Rage is a strong defensive response—it is about the impulse to kill! Hence people become terrified by this impulse and try to suppress it. The pediatrician is helping me to contain this rage and not be overwhelmed by it.) My body continues to shake and tremble. It is alternately icy cold and feverishly hot. (24. This is indicative of a continued strong discharge.) A burning red fury erupts from deep within my belly: How could that stupid kid hit me in a crosswalk? Wasn’t she paying attention? Damn her! (25. More rage—accompanied with the human neocortical tendency to blame.) A blast of shrill sirens and flashing red lights block out everything. My belly tightens, and my eyes again reach to find the woman’s kind gaze. We squeeze hands, and the knot in my gut loosens. I hear my shirt ripping. I am startled and again jump to the vantage of an observer hovering above my sprawling body. (26. The abruptness with which the shirt is removed restimulates the dissociation.) I watch uniformed strangers methodically attach electrodes to my chest. The Good Samaritan paramedic reports to someone that my pulse was 170. I hear my shirt ripping even more. (27. As I notice that I’m dissociating, I am able to bring myself back to my body.) I see the emergency team slip a collar onto my neck and then cautiously slide me onto a board. While they strap me down, I hear some garbled radio communication. The paramedics are requesting a full trauma team. Alarm jolts me. I ask to be taken to the nearest hospital only a mile away, but they tell me that my injuries may require the major trauma center in La Jolla, some thirty miles farther. My heart sinks. Surprisingly, though, the fear quickly subsides. (28.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Ironically, even the closeness generated by good sex can have a boomerang effect. Like John and Beatrice, many couples experience their relationship as a dance in which great sex brings them close, but then this very closeness can make sex difficult again. The initial rapture facilitates a swift bonding and establishes an immediate connection. But while many of us relish the idea of losing ourselves in sex, the very oneness that we experience through the merging of our bodies can evoke a sense of obliteration. The intensity of sexual passion triggers a fear of engulfment. Of course, few of us are aware of these undercurrents as they’re happening. What we feel instead is the urge to pull out right after orgasm, or the sudden desire to make a sandwich, to light a cigarette. We welcome the intrusion of any random thought: I meant to send an e-mail to…These windows need cleaning…. I wonder how my friend Jack is doing? We appreciate being left alone to meander leisurely in our own mind because this reestablishes a psychological distance, a delineation of the boundaries between me and you. From “inter-” we go back to “intra-.” Having been all over each other, we retreat back into our own skin. Nowhere is the passage from connection to separateness represented more clearly than at the end of a sexual act. In his book Arousal, the psychoanalyst Michael Bader offers another explanation for John and Beatrice’s erotic impasse. In his view, intimacy comes with a growing concern for the well-being of the other person, which includes a fear of hurting her. But sexual excitement requires the capacity not to worry, and the pursuit of pleasure demands a degree of selfishness. Some people can’t allow themselves this selfishness, because they’re too absorbed with the well-being of the beloved. This emotional configuration is reminiscent of how John felt toward his mother—his awareness of her unhappiness overwhelmed him with worry and a sense of burden. The very caring he experiences makes it harder for him to focus on his own needs, to feel spontaneous, sexually alive, and carefree. John has faced this vexing problem of loss of desire in every intimate relationship he’s been in. In the past, every time the block set in he interpreted it as meaning that he no longer loved the woman. In fact, the contrary is true. It is because he loves her so much that he carries this sense of responsibility for her and can’t enjoy the blithe quest for erotic rapture. Patterns Are Equal Employment Opportunities

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  You are the leader of a group. Something dangerous is about to happen—I’m not sure what, but you are leading the group into the woods to some safer spot. Or you are supposed to be. But the trail you take us on gets rockier, narrower, darker. Then it disappears entirely. You vanish, and we are lost and very scared. The second: We—the same group—are all in a hotel room, and again there is some danger. Maybe intruders, maybe a tornado. Again, you are leading us out of danger. You take us up afire escape that has black metal steps. We climb and climb, but it goes nowhere. It just ends at the ceiling, and we all have to back down. Other dreams followed. In one she and I take an exam together, and neither of us knows the answers. In another she looks at herself in the mirror and sees red spots of decay on her cheeks. In another she dances with a wiry young man who suddenly leaves her on the dance floor. She turns to a mirror and recoils to see her face covered with sagging red skin pockmarked with hideous boils and blood blisters. The message of these dreams was crystal-clear: danger and decay are inescapable. And I am no savior—on the contrary, I am unreliable and impotent. Soon a particularly powerful dream added a further component. You are my travel guide in an isolated site in a foreign country—maybe Greece or Turkey. You are driving an open Jeep, and we are quarreling about what to visit. I want to see some beautiful old classical ruins, and you keep wanting to take me to the modern, tacky, flimsy city. You begin to drive so fast that I get scared. Then the Jeep gets stuck, and we are tottering, swaying back and forth, over some huge pit. I look down and can’t see the bottom. This dream, involving the dichotomy between beautiful ancient ruins and a modern tacky city, reflects, of course, our ongoing “treason versus reason” debate. Which route to take? The old, beautiful ruins (the first text) of her old life? Or the deplorably ugly new life she saw stretching ahead of her? But it also suggested a new aspect of our work together. In the earlier dreams I am inept: I lose the path in the forest; I take Irene up a fire escape that leads to a ceiling with no escape; I do not know the answers to the examination. In this dream, however, not only am I inept and fail to protect her, I am also dangerous—I lead Irene to the brink of death. A couple of nights later she dreamed that she and I embrace and gently kiss. But what starts off sweetly turns to terror when my mouth opens wider and wider and I begin to devour her. “I struggle and struggle,” she reported, “but cannot wrench free.”

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  As a matter of fact, the more he cares about her, the less he can freely lust after her. For him, as for many other men in this predicament, erotic shutdown is not subtle. He is at the mercy of a stubborn penis that simply will not respond. But why? What is the erotic block that stops him from pursuing pleasure with Beatrice, the same woman with whom he lay in a languorous paradise not so long ago? Ironically, even the closeness generated by good sex can have a boomerang effect. Like John and Beatrice, many couples experience their relationship as a dance in which great sex brings them close, but then this very closeness can make sex difficult again. The initial rapture facilitates a swift bonding and establishes an immediate connection. But while many of us relish the idea of losing ourselves in sex, the very oneness that we experience through the merging of our bodies can evoke a sense of obliteration. The intensity of sexual passion triggers a fear of engulfment. Of course, few of us are aware of these undercurrents as they’re happening. What we feel instead is the urge to pull out right after orgasm, or the sudden desire to make a sandwich, to light a cigarette. We welcome the intrusion of any random thought: I meant to send an e-mail to…These windows need cleaning…. I wonder how my friend Jack is doing? We appreciate being left alone to meander leisurely in our own mind because this reestablishes a psychological distance, a delineation of the boundaries between me and you. From “inter-” we go back to “intra-.” Having been all over each other, we retreat back into our own skin. Nowhere is the passage from connection to separateness represented more clearly than at the end of a sexual act. In his book Arousal , the psychoanalyst Michael Bader offers another explanation for John and Beatrice’s erotic impasse. In his view, intimacy comes with a growing concern for the well-being of the other person, which includes a fear of hurting her. But sexual excitement requires the capacity not to worry, and the pursuit of pleasure demands a degree of selfishness. Some people can’t allow themselves this selfishness, because they’re too absorbed with the well-being of the beloved. This emotional configuration is reminiscent of how John felt toward his mother—his awareness of her unhappiness overwhelmed him with worry and a sense of burden. The very caring he experiences makes it harder for him to focus on his own needs, to feel spontaneous, sexually alive, and carefree. John has faced this vexing problem of loss of desire in every intimate relationship he’s been in. In the past, every time the block set in he interpreted it as meaning that he no longer loved the woman. In fact, the contrary is true. It is because he loves her so much that he carries this sense of responsibility for her and can’t enjoy the blithe quest for erotic rapture.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  It’s an ebb and flow.” Love and desire are two rhythmic yet clashing forces that are always in a state of flux and always looking for the balance point. Ben has been going out with Adair for the past eight months—a record for him—and something different is happening. “I think I’m in love with this woman,” he says. “OK, I think I’m in love with every woman, but this one is different. OK, everyone is different, but this one is really different. She grounds me. I can be freaking out about something—you know how I get—and she doesn’t react. Not that she doesn’t care, or doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t get in there and panic right along with me. There’s something quiet about her, and, you know, I’m anything but quiet. I think this could work. I like being with her. And the sex is still pretty good...” “I’m waiting for the but...” I tell him. “But I do feel it changing. I’m getting nervous, restless. I really don’t want to fuck this up. I’m forty-three-years old, for God’s sake. I want to have a kid, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to stick around.” I have never met Adair, but something about the way she handles Ben makes me feel optimistic. Unbeknownst to him, he has a foil for his (dare I say?) fear of intimacy. In the past his girlfriends have been only too happy to merge with him; but Adair is able to hold her own—she seems to have a real sense of self that exists independently of him. Even after eight months, she is fiercely discreet about her private life. She exudes a quiet equanimity, a sober and subtle intelligence. She is a nurse in a pediatric oncology unit and works in the looming presence of death. Ben makes her laugh; he brings lightness into her world. His thirst for life enlivens her. His erotic ardor is the opposite of morbid. She likes the contrast. Ben certainly brings an entire emotional history to his predicament, and he’s got a lot of stuff to deal with. But the difficulty of reconciling security and excitement is not purely the result of his personal problems. It is the challenge of the modern ideal of love. With this in mind, we examine what sexuality means for Ben. Most of us lament the wilting of erotic passion with melancholy, quiet acquiescence, or severe agita; but maintaining erotic vitality doesn’t become the organizing principle of our lives. Not so for Ben. Sex is where he finds himself most alive. It has a regenerative power that allows him to go back into the world feeling enriched and renewed. In lovemaking he feels connection and nurturance that he does not get anywhere else. He is at once vulnerable and masterful, exposed and confident.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  The center of the dream—the loud whoosh—was immediately clear to me. As a child I was plagued with chronic sinusitis, and every winter my mother took me to Dr. Davis for a sinus draining and flushing. I hated his yellow teeth and his fishy eye, which peered at me though the center of the circular mirror attached to the headband otolaryngologists used to wear. As he inserted a cannula into my sinus foramen, I felt a sharp pain, then heard a deafening whooooosh as the injected saline flushed out my sinus. Looking at the quivering, disgusting mess in the semicircular chrome drainage pan, I thought that some of my brains had been washed out along with the pus and mucus. Just as Freud had suggested, my first dream anticipated layer after layer of years of analytic work: my fears of exposure, of losing my mind, of being brainwashed, of suffering a grievous injury (deflation) to a long, firm body part (depicted as a shinbone). Freud and many subsequent analysts have cautioned against plunging too quickly into the meaning of the first dream lest early interpretation and exposure to unconscious material overwhelm patients and immobilize our dreamweaving homunculus entirely. Such admonishments have seemed to me directed not so much toward increasing the effectiveness of therapy as toward protecting the parochial self-interest of the analytic discipline, and I’ve always resisted them. From the 1940s to the 1960s, a walking-on-eggshells approach to therapy reigned. The precise, delicate phrasing of interventions was the topic of endless arcane debates within analytic institutes. Bombarded with propaganda about the necessity for exquisitely timed and formulated interpretations, novices—full of awe and fear—tiptoed carefully through therapy, stifling their spontaneity—and their effectiveness. I found that such formalism was counter-productive because it interfered with the greater goal of establishing an empathic, authentic relationship to the patient. To me, Freud’s warning not to work on dreams until the therapeutic alliance is firmly established seems strangely inverted: working together on a dream is an excellent way to build the therapeutic alliance. So I plunged right into Irene’s dream. “So you hadn’t read either text,” I began, “especially not the old one.” “Yes, yes, I expected you to ask about that. Of course, it doesn’t make sense; I know that. But that’s exactly the way it was in the dream. I had not read the assignment—I hadn’t read either text, but I especially hadn’t read the ancient one.” “The one that would have prepared you for the new text. Any hunches about the meaning of the two texts in your life?” “Hardly a hunch,” Irene replied. “I know exactly what they mean.” I waited for her to go on but she simply sat in silence, looking out the window. I hadn’t yet learned of Irene’s irritating trait of not volunteering a conclusion unless I explicitly requested it. Annoyed, I let the silence last a minute or two. Finally I obliged: “And the meaning of the two texts, Irene, is—”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  At any rate, finding that I was getting nowhere, I eventually abandoned this tack and sought other ways to help her. Then, months later, when I least expected it, came the episode of the still-life painting, followed by the cascade of images and dreams perfused with death anxiety. Now the timing was right, and she was receptive to my interpretations. Another dream appeared, one so arresting she could not banish it from her mind. I am in the screened porch of a flimsy summer cottage and see a large, menacing beast with an enormous mouth waiting a few feet from the front door. I am terrified. I worry something will happen to my daughter. I decide to try to satisfy the beast with a sacrifice and toss a red plaid stuffed animal out of the door. The beast takes the bait but stays there. Its eyes burn. They are fixed on me. I am the prey. Irene immediately identified the plaid stuffed sacrificial animal: “It’s Jack. That’s the color of his pajamas the night he died.” So strong was the dream that it lingered in her mind for weeks, and she gradually grew to understand that though she had first displaced her anxiety about death onto her daughter, she was really death’s prey. “It’s me the creature is watching so fiercely, and that means there is only one way to read this dream.” She hesitated. “The dream is saying that I’ve unconsciously viewed Jack’s death as a sacrifice so that I might continue living.” She was shocked at her own thought and even more by the realization that death was out there waiting, not for others, not for her daughter, but for her. Using this new frame of reference, we gradually reexamined some of Irene’s most persistent and painful feelings. We began with guilt, which tormented her, as it does most bereaved spouses. I once treated a widow who had rarely left the bedside of her husband for weeks as he lay unconscious in a hospital. One day, in the few minutes it took her to slip down to the hospital gift shop to purchase a newspaper, her husband died. Guilt for having deserted him plagued her for months. Irene, similarly, had been inexhaustible in her attentiveness to Jack: she had nursed him with extraordinary devotion and rejected all of my urgings to take time off, to give herself some respite by hospitalizing him or engaging a nursing service. Instead, she rented a hospital bed, placed it next to her bed and slept by him until the moment he died.