DECONSTRUCTING ANXIETY: The Journey from Fear to Fulfillment
Book Details:
Book Title: DECONSTRUCTING ANXIETY The Journey from Fear to Fulfillment by Todd E. Pressman, PhD
Category: Adult Non-Fiction (18+) (336 pages)
Genre: Self-Help/How To
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Release date: January 2020
Tour dates: Jan 13 to Feb 7, 2020
Content Rating: PG
Category: Adult Non-Fiction (18+) (336 pages)
Genre: Self-Help/How To
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Release date: January 2020
Tour dates: Jan 13 to Feb 7, 2020
Content Rating: PG
Book Description:
In
Deconstructing Anxiety, Pressman provides a new and comprehensive
understanding of fear's subtlest mechanisms. In this model, anxiety is
understood as the wellspring at the source of all problems. Tapping into
this source therefore holds the clues not only for how to escape fear,
but how to release the very causes of suffering, paving the way to a
profound sense of peace and satisfaction in life.
With strategically developed exercises, this book offers a unique, integrative approach to healing and growth, based on an understanding of how the psyche organizes itself around anxiety. It provides insights into the architecture of anxiety, introducing the dynamics of the “core fear” (one's fundamental interpretation of danger in the world) and “chief defense” (the primary strategy for protecting oneself from threat). The anxious personality is then built upon this foundation, creating a “three dimensional, multi-sensory hologram” within which one can feel trapped and helpless.
Replete with processes that bring the theoretical background into technicolor, Deconstructing Anxiety provides a clear roadmap to resolving this human dilemma, paving the way to an ultimate and transcendent freedom. Therapists and laypeople alike will find this book essential in helping design a life of meaning, purpose and enduring fulfillment.
With strategically developed exercises, this book offers a unique, integrative approach to healing and growth, based on an understanding of how the psyche organizes itself around anxiety. It provides insights into the architecture of anxiety, introducing the dynamics of the “core fear” (one's fundamental interpretation of danger in the world) and “chief defense” (the primary strategy for protecting oneself from threat). The anxious personality is then built upon this foundation, creating a “three dimensional, multi-sensory hologram” within which one can feel trapped and helpless.
Replete with processes that bring the theoretical background into technicolor, Deconstructing Anxiety provides a clear roadmap to resolving this human dilemma, paving the way to an ultimate and transcendent freedom. Therapists and laypeople alike will find this book essential in helping design a life of meaning, purpose and enduring fulfillment.
Todd
Pressman Author of
Deconstructing
Anxiety
WHEN ANXIETY AND
DEPRESSION ARE “SPIRITUAL EMERGENCIES”
by
Todd E. Pressman, Ph.D.
There is a new discipline in the field of psychology called
“Spiritual Emergency”. This phrase, coined by Stanislav Grof, M.D.,
refers to those experiences where a more expanded state of awareness—what we
will call a “spiritual” experience—creates anxiety, depression or some other
sort of turmoil. The term “emergency” is meant as a double entendre: One
is both emerging into a higher state of awareness and undergoing an emergency
at the same time. For without proper guidance and understanding, the
spiritual emergency can indeed lead to anxiety attacks, depression, confusion
and crisis.
Grof's purpose in defining such a term was to help those undergoing
spiritual emergency to realize that there is a different way to understand and
work with these experiences, rather than submitting to the diagnosis of a
pathological “break” from reality and being treated with suppressant
medication.
But this leaves us with an important question: How are we to know
the difference between a true spiritual emergency, an evolution to a higher
level of being, and a pathological break disguised as such?
The “perennial philosophy”, with its powerful framework for understanding
both the mind and the nature of reality, answers this question. If all
our experiences boil down to either fear or Love (to use the language of “A
course in miracles”, for example), and fear is an illusion while only Love is
ultimately real, then those “spiritual” experiences which come from fear are
not truly spiritual but illusory. Only those experiences which are fueled
by Love can be trusted as authentic.
As a psychologist I can translate this in the terms of my clinical
experience. If a patient or client that I'm working with claims to be
having a spiritual awakening but ends up feeling less “integrated” as a
result—less effective in their ability to function and accomplish their goals,
less at peace, less joyous—then I know my job is to help him or her work
through the fear behind the experience. With a successful working
through, whatever spiritual feeling is left can be counted on as trustworthy.
Helen Schucmann, the “scribe” of A course in
miracles, thought she was having delusions when an “inner Voice” first
began dictating the material of the Course to her. Only with the support
of her colleague William Thetford could she trust that perhaps these were not
delusions but transmissions form a high Source. The validation that this
was so is apparent to anyone who has opened the Course and seen its beauty,
profundity and power to heal. This is certainly not the work of a
delusional mind!
Sigmund Freud, while in the early stages of his work, often wondered
whether the journeys into his own unconscious were not, in fact, journeys into
madness. With enormous courage, at a time when no one else could show him
the way, he pursued his path and ultimately came to resolution. That this
was an authentic resolution was signified in two ways: First, his inner
conflict disappeared as he, second, developed a clarity and awareness that he
didn't have before. This awareness, of course, became the foundation for
psychoanalysis, the first real map of the unconscious. Its effectiveness
as a model and the demonstration that his was a true, we may say “spiritual”
journey, is further validated by the countless numbers of people who have been
helped by it.
Again, however, it is important, even crucial, that we not assume
something is a spiritual experience without discerning whether fear or Love is
motivating it. An associates of mine once worked with someone suffering
from Bipolar Disorder, popularly known as Manic-Depressive Disorder.
During a Manic episode, this person believed she heard a voice telling her to
“trust in her higher self” and drive down the road at 100 miles per hour while
letting go of the steering wheel. Even though seriously injured from the
accident which followed, she still maintained that it was, in fact, a higher
voice directing her. This is clearly not a spiritual emergency, even
though the woman had a strong spiritual life which, under different
circumstances, served her well.
There are also experiences which have elements of both spiritual
awakenings and psychopathological expressions. I am presently working
with someone who has Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple
Personality Disorder. This woman has an indomitable spirit and her faith
and spiritual experiences are quite real. Nevertheless, she suffered
horrendous abuses as a child, causing her to “split off” into many
personalities as a necessary survival strategy. Our therapy has been a
matter of helping her heal this split, integrating these separate selves into a
unified whole. As her pathology clears up, she then spontaneously moves
into the spiritual experience where other aspects of herself, non-pathological,
become integrated into a more unified whole.
The integration of all parts of ourselves and all aspects of
reality, it can be fairly said, is the goal of any good path of healing and
growth. According to the perennial philosophy, we all split off from
ourselves, for originally we sprang from a unified Ground of Being. Even
traditional psychology understands that the many people that seem to be
populating the planet represent different aspects of ourselves and of the whole
“person” that is humanity. Our goal, then, in undergoing our own
spiritual emergence, is to move through the fear that had us split off in the
first place, to join with each other in the expression of love, and ultimately
return to the unified and integrated sense of Self we were originally created
to be.
BUY THE BOOK:
About the Author:
TODD
E. PRESSMAN, Ph.D., is a psychologist dedicated to helping people
design lives of fulfillment. He is the founder and director of Logos
Wellness Center and Pressman and Associates Life Counseling Center. An
international speaker and seminar leader, he has presented at the Omega
Institute, the New York Open Center, and numerous professional
conferences, including the prestigious Council Grove Conference,
sponsored by the Menninger Foundation. He has written dozens of
articles, educational programs, and two highly acclaimed books, Radical
Joy: Awakening Your Potential for True Fulfillment and The Bicycle
Repair Shop: A True Story of Recovery from Multiple Personality
Disorder. He earned his doctorate in psychology from the Saybrook
Institute and an undergraduate degree from the University of
Pennsylvania, has studied under renowned leaders in the Consciousness
movement and Gestalt therapy, and has traveled around the world to study
the great Wisdom traditions, from Zen Buddhism to fire-walking
ceremonies, providing a cross-cultural perspective of the extraordinary
capacities of the mind and spirit. He makes his home in Philadelphia.
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