“I’m in a vegetable patch”. These were the words uttered to me by a recent client who presented with an irrational fear of vegetables. “And how old are you?” I asked. “About three years of age” came the reply, “And what’s happening?” “My father is pulling out the old runner bean vines”.
The man had struggled all his life with the idea of consuming any form of vegetables, indeed while in a business meeting over a lunchtime period he had reported getting close to having to make his excuses to leave as a plate of sandwiches, each one containing a filling with salad, was placed on the table. He was deeply embarrassed at his day to day distress and it meant that he avoided social engagements even though he was young, bright and articulate.
“And what are you doing as you watch your father?” “One of the old beans has fallen on the floor at my feet” “Go on…” “I’ve picked it up and have put it in my mouth to eat it”.
At three years of age he had never been offered runner beans at the dining table, but he had observed his parents eating them at mealtimes, so as a naturally inquisitive child he was eager to try one for himself.
“And what’s happening now?” “It’s horrible - it’s tough and dry and tastes of dirt!” came the distressed reply.
Of course, like all parents of a three year old, his parents had told him about not eating dirt and always needing to wash his hands before eating, as the dirt may make him ill. It turned out that this was what had started his deep “rooted” fear of vegetables. His young mind was not experienced enough to rationalise the situation as an adult would and so the experience was taken as a literal life lesson: You eat vegetables, they are dirty and you subsequently go against your parents wishes and get ill. Re-experiencing the event and then re-evaluating it from an adults perspective significantly contributed to him letting go of the fear.
Although not all irrational fears can be so clearly attributed to a single event, in general irrational fears are either acquired as a defensive response to a traumatic incident or are learnt responses. The little girl aged five locked in the dark cellar by her fiendish eight year old brother is already in a high state of fear and alarm due to the combination of the dark and her imagination about what lurks in this unknown forbidden place. So when she falls back against the wall, brushes a cobweb and a spider runs across her face, her mind makes no conscious distinction between the existing state of anxiety and the significance of the spider. A traumatic event has occurred with the spider as its focus. Later in life the experience of a car crash may likewise result in a fear of being in a vehicle or revisiting the place where the incident occurred.
Learnt responses most often also become established in early childhood. The young child is constantly seeking information about the world and how he should behave within it, and of course for most of us the main source of such input are the significant adults in our lives, namely our parents: So father is a 6ft tall, confident young man who can be relied upon to provide useful life lessons. The only problem is that when ever there is a thunder storm he seeks refuge under the dining room table and is reduced to a quivering wreck. “So if this thing frightens daddy, then it must be harmful and therefore I should be scared of it too.”
This of course leads us to the moral of the tale. If you don’t want your children to develop an irrational fear about clothing don’t let them see the horror on Dad’s face when Mum tells him how much she just spent on her new dress!
I will write on "phobias" in the future. In the instance of a genuine phobia the object of fear is not directly linked to an obvious sensitising event involving that object. Instead the object has become the place holder for anxiety generated elsewhere and the event(s) around the anxiety are often repressed, that is; not immediately known to the conscious mind.