Breaking Free From Artificial Fear: A Therapist's Insights

Acknowledging fear's existence is essential, but ceding control to it can have distastrous consequences for your mental health.

By Jourdan Travers, LCSW | October 8, 2023

Alex Honnold, the rock-climbing legend, often faced life and death on the towering cliffs he scaled without ropes. But before he embraced those dizzying heights, he grappled with a different challenge: the fear of approaching strangers to rope up with him. This "artificial fear" of social interaction initially pushed him towards solo climbing, a pursuit that might never have been his path had he not been deterred by this internal apprehension. It's a striking example of how our internal fears, while they might occasionally lead to extraordinary outcomes, can also dictate our choices, diverting us from other potential paths or experiences.

We are all guilty of being victims of our own fears. Maybe it compels us to skip an after-work mixer because we're worried we'll have nobody to talk to. Perhaps it leads us to miss an opportunity to ask a romantic interest out on a date. Maybe it causes us to avoid a difficult but necessary conversation with a friend or family member.

These situations often leave us feeling regretful and lost. Unfortunately, regret is not a particularly activating emotion—it does little to inspire us to overcome our fears on the next try. Instead, we become trapped in a cycle of fear-based inaction and regression.

Here are a few ways to tell if your fears are preventing you from being the best version of yourself, and how to fix it.

Are you letting your fear run the show?

Psychologists have devised powerful diagnostic tools to assess whether a person is motivated by their fears to a problematic degree. One such test, called the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, asks people to consider how much the following seven statements ring true in their lives (more agreement means a higher likelihood of exhibiting what psychologists call "experiential avoidance," or neglecting to take part in potentially fulfilling life experiences):

  1. My painful experiences and memories make it difficult for me to live a life that I would value
  2. I'm afraid of my feelings
  3. I worry about not being able to control my worries and feelings
  4. My painful memories prevent me from having a fulfilling life
  5. Emotions cause problems in my life
  6. It seems like most people are handling their lives better than I am
  7. Worries get in the way of my success

These questions can help us see our irrational fears for what they are: debilitating and self-isolating.

Other tests focus specifically on the social aspect of fear. For instance, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale asks respondents to rate how much they fear and avoid situations such as:

  • Talking to someone in authority
  • Acting, performing or speaking in front of an audience
  • Going to a party
  • Working while being observed
  • Looking someone who you don't know very well straight in the eyes
  • Calling someone you don't know very well

Symptoms such as these can prevent us from making new friends and strengthening our interpersonal connections—two critical components of mental and emotional well-being.

The Anxiety Sensitivity Index touches on some of the physical manifestations of our fears, with agree-disagree statements such as:

  • It scares me when my heart beats rapidly
  • When my stomach is upset, I worry that I might be seriously ill
  • Unusual body sensations scare me
  • When I am nervous, I worry that I might be mentally ill

Concerns such as these can prevent us from living a balanced life due to an irrational fear that we might damage our health.

Taming your fear is possible. Here's how to start.

Working with a qualified mental health practitioner is one of the best ways to sift out irrational fears that may be holding you back from personal growth and development.

Here are two tips from the experts on how to replace artificial fear with more productive thought patterns:

  1. Fact-check your rejection sensitivity. Duke University psychologist Mark Leary, who has done extensive research on acceptance and belonging, urges people not to read too deeply into their rejection sensitivities. "We tend to have negative, rather than neutral, reactions to learning that someone feels neutral about us. What this means is that most people probably go through life feeling more rejected than they actually are. And, a history of actual rejection—by neglectful parents or rejecting peers, for example—seems to increase people's tendency to underestimate their relational value. Viewed in this way, the first step in addressing one's concerns with acceptance and rejection is to examine the evidence as objectively as possible, trying not to either sugarcoat others' reactions or read too much negativity into them."
  2. Manage social anxiety instead of aiming to eliminate it. Psychologist Fallon Goodman of the University of South Florida says, "Overcoming social anxiety is not about preventing rejection or eliminating anxiety. If your goal is to feel zero anxiety, then you'll have a tough time being a human. Instead, overcoming social anxiety is about developing the skills and confidence to manage anxiety when it comes. If there's anything that psychologists have learned in the past century, it's how to treat anxiety. Our treatments aren't perfect and the same treatments don't work for everyone, but they tend to be very effective. People with social anxiety will likely feel a lot better after a few sessions of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The key ingredient for anxiety treatment is exposure. To overcome social anxiety, a person must be willing to try out different social situations, even when—especially when—rejection is likely."

If you'd like to take the Anxiety Sensitivity Index cited above and receive your results, you can follow this link: Anxiety Sensitivity Test