Counterphobia

Garganta de Cuartos in Losar de la Vera

I’m soon off on a short weekend trip to Losar de la Vera in Extremadura, this is a beautiful part of Spain and pretty much off the beaten tourist track. It is an area formed of many small rivers and pools by the water that runs off a mountain range known as la Sierra de los Gredos.   

I found this photo of an old stone bridge that crosses the river and did some investigation work dicovering that the water is deep enough so that you can jump off this eight metre bridge without hitting the bottom (in theory).

I now have  a strong desire to throw myself off the bridge when I get there, which could be considered fun when one is 20 years old, but I am now 50 and got me thinking about what am I trying to prove or to overcome. Considering that I’m afraid of heights the first thing that comes into my mind is a concept called counterphobia.

Counterphobia is described as actively searching out the very thing that creates anxiety, it is a kind of defense mechanism used in an attempt to overcome fear. It is the opposite of avoidance, where a phobic person will go to great lengths to avoid the thing, person or context that creates the fear.

Freud was considered by many as a counter phobic as he continually ruminated on an intellectual level about the very thing that he most feared the emotional world and sexuality. 

Counterphobia is the terrain of the adrenaline junkie and the horror movie fan, as facing fear and overcoming it can be an exhilarating experience and can also help in learning that fears can be faced and overcome, but the continued searching out of fearful experiences can leave one in a continued state of fight or flight.

So this weekend when I’m stood on the precipice of the bridge, as I surely shall, I will be conscious of facing this fear as something fun and not from a counter phobic position of trying to prove to myself that I don’t fear fear, because I obviously do.