Word: phillipson
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...which to deposit all that unformed fear--a snake, a spider, a rat. A specific phobia becomes a sort of backfire for fear, a controlled blaze that prevents other blazes from catching. "The thinking mind seeks out a rationale for the primitive mind's unexplained experiences," says psychologist Steven Phillipson, clinical director of the Center for Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy in New York City...
...exposure level is reached, the alarms start to quiet; they sound again only when the intensity of the exposure is turned up. "Just as people become habituated to the noise of traffic or background chatter, so too can phobics become nonresponsive to the thing that once frightened them," says Phillipson...
...beat the stuffing out of sufferers because the feelings they generate seem so real and the dangers they warn of so great. Most of the time, however, the dangers are mere neurochemical lies--and the lies have to be exposed. "Your instincts tell you to escape or avoid," says Phillipson. "But what you really need to do is face down the fear." When you spend your life in a cautionary crouch, the greatest relief of all may come from simply standing...
...bath, say, or the doctor - can't be avoided. It's only when extreme fears persist past age seven and significantly begin to affect the child's ability to function that clinicians become concerned. "When young children are doing well despite their fears, we don't intervene," says Phillipson. "When an older child starts to suffer at home or at school, it's time to get involved...
...parents of phobic kids to become involved in treatment, attending sessions and walking the child through the hierarchy of exposure - provided they can resist the natural impulse to step in and stop the session when the child starts to grow fearful. "Hard as it is for parents to watch," Phillipson says, "the only way for kids to get around the pain is to go through the pain...