Why avoiding things keeps anxiety alive
There is an old joke about a man on a Tunbridge Wells train who claps his hands every few seconds. When the passenger opposite asks why, he says it keeps the elephants away. “There are no elephants in Kent,” says the passenger. “Exactly,” says the man. “It works.” It is a silly story, but it describes one of the most important ideas in modern anxiety treatment with uncomfortable accuracy.
In 1986, the Oxford psychologist David M. Clark published a model of panic that changed how it is treated. His argument was that panic attacks happen when ordinary anxiety sensations are read as far more dangerous than they are. A racing heart becomes a heart attack. Dizziness becomes collapse. The fear of the sensation then produces more of the sensation, and the spiral tightens.
The clever part of Clark’s work is what people do next. Someone who fears fainting in Waitrose holds onto the trolley, sits down, or leaves before the queue. Someone who fears losing control avoids the motorway. These are safety behaviours, and they feel sensible. The problem is that every time you hold the trolley and don’t faint, your mind credits the trolley. Just like the man clapping on the train, you never get to discover that the elephant was never coming.
Research by Clark, Adrian Wells and colleagues showed this directly: people did better when they faced their fears while dropping their safety behaviours than when they faced them with the safety behaviours still in place. That is why good CBT for anxiety is not just “face your fears”. It is a careful, collaborative process of noticing what you do to protect yourself, and then running small experiments without it, at a pace you agree to.
If anxiety has started shrinking your life in Tunbridge Wells, whether that is avoiding the train to London, the school gates or busy shops, this is very treatable work. Read more about anxiety therapy and CBT, or get in touch.