confronting your own fears

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Who and at what time started talking about confronting your own fears as a cure ?

-- tim de ridder (tderidder@mail.afifellows.org), March 23, 2001

Answers

Read Aristotle's account of tragedy in the Poetics. According to him, the aim of tragedy is to evoke fear and pity in the audience members, to purge them of these emotions ("katharsis" is acutally the term he used... just like Freud would over 200 years later).

-- Christpoher Green (christo@yorku.ca), March 23, 2001.

Hi Tim, I don't know if there is an answer for your question in psychology. I suppose you could first divide up your fears between useful fears (like fear of posionous snakes which might have a very high survival value) and existentialist anxiey and perhaps phobias (irrational fears like public speaking). If you mean existentialist kinds of fears, this may be an issue of philosophy? Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), March 23, 2001.

In his Psychotherapy (1909), Hugo Munsterberg would have counseled the client NOT to confront one's fears, but to intentionally forget whatever experience triggered the fear in the first place. But perhaps itm might it be argued that one would first have to confront one's fear before attempting to suppress it. Then again, there is an ancient Chinese saying that to seek safety, one should seek out the heart of danger.

-- Rob Hoff (robhoff@mercyhurst.edu), March 26, 2001.

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