“I’m afraid of a heart attack,” “I’m afraid to communicate,” “I’m afraid of time,” “I’m afraid...”, “I’m afraid...”, “I’m afraid...” - this is how the client’s dialogue with the psychologist very often begins. A frightened look, despair and fear of judgment from a professional whose calling is to help. As a rule, having gone through all imaginable and inconceivable specialists, from a neurologist to a psychiatrist, a person with his last hope, and sometimes no longer hoping for anything, out of habit, comes to a psychologist. Can a psychologist help cope with this nightmare? Is modern secular psychology even capable of showing a way out of a difficult situation? First, let's figure out what fear is? Moderate fear is a normal, natural reaction of the body to the unknown, danger, unpredictability, which protects us from threats and acts on the basis of the instinct of self-preservation. Fear, like pain, is designed to protect us from rash actions. At the heart of fear is the unknown. The famous ancient philosopher Aristotle said that fear is “the expectation of evil.” The key word here is "expectation." When the situation in our life changes dramatically and we don’t know how to react to it, fear arises from a lack of information. We can conclude that the “cure” for fear is predictability, timely information received, forecast, and flexible thinking. The transition from natural to pathological fear occurs when there is no real danger, and the imagination draws terrible pictures of the future. Every person has their own favorite fear. Originating in the imagination, it activates physiological mechanisms, such as increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, and hormonal changes. When such reactions are repeated, the so-called conditioned reflex is consolidated (according to I.P. Pavlov), and it becomes harder and harder to get rid of the habit of fear. A person becomes dependent on his fears. Our imagination deceives us. It happens that people deliberately create fear in themselves by watching horror films or doing extreme sports. They get a specific pleasure from this, caused by the action of the hormone adrenaline. This is a kind of addiction, akin to drug addiction and alcoholism. And often the reason for this behavior can be an internal, unconscious fear that a person tries to repress because he does not know how to deal with it. As they say, “they knock out wedges with wedges.” By coping with fear during extreme sports, a person receives the illusion that he is in control of his life, that he is winning, that he is “strong.” He is also driven by the desire to show his “coolness” and fearlessness. Paradoxically, it is precisely such people who, when in serious danger, show themselves to be cowards. Another common fear is the fear of communication, which paralyzes a person’s social activity. And behind it lies the fear of losing respect, the fear of appearing funny, the fear of rejection and condemnation. And since people are social creatures, for the most part they can survive only in society. The subconscious perceives rejection by others as a possibility of death. So it turns out that behind every such fear lies the fear of death and this heartbreaking question “What if...?” Secular psychology is unable to calm the alarmist for the simple reason that it itself avoids the topic of death. After all, look: on the forums of psychological sites, many psychologists answer questions from visitors related to family relationships, self-development, achieving success... But as soon as the question concerns a serious incurable illness, the death of a loved one, suicide, obsessive thoughts or the meaning of life, the number of respondents drops sharply, if not to say that they completely disappear. The grieving person’s question remains unanswered... Why does the science of the soul (“psyche” translated from Greek as “soul”) avoid everything related to the existence of the soul? Death is an integral part of our life. Pretending that this topic is not important and is not worth talking aboutTo say, adults are like little children who, playing hide and seek, hide their heads under a chair, sincerely believing that they are not visible. Many secular psychologists do the same. And the reason is clear - they themselves do not know what to do in such a situation and what can be said to the grieving person to calm him down. It is possible to speak openly about fears and death only when a person’s worldview is based on a strong faith in God and knowledge of what death is. Can an unbeliever see the point? Can a blind man lead a blind man? And here we come to an important conclusion: only the teaching about God, about love, about the meaning of life, about good and evil, whose name is Orthodoxy, can shed light on this problem. The Gospel and the works of the holy fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church already contain answers to these complex questions. The main thing is to look. An Orthodox psychologist has invaluable knowledge that other specialists do not have. What does Orthodoxy say about the nature of fears? The appearance of fears is accompanied by a mass of obsessive thoughts that cause and support this fear, intensify and bring it to incredible proportions: “Nobody needs me,” “There is no meaning in life,” “There is no way out,” etc. These thoughts rush through your head like a whirlwind, and secular psychology does not know how to deal with them. In case of obsessive thoughts, psychiatry suggests taking medications that inhibit the thought process, while inhibiting the functioning of the entire body. Only Orthodoxy knows the nature of the emergence of such thoughts. The very name “obsessive thoughts” suggests that they are imposed from the outside. There is some independent source. The Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church say that a person in such situations is dealing with an attack by demons. And since we are used to trusting our thoughts and feelings, we cannot fight them until we understand that these illogical and paradoxical thoughts are not ours! Whether a person believes in demons or not does not matter. Disguising yourself and remaining unnoticed is a demonic tactic. The main goal of the spirits of evil is to drive crazy, and eventually completely destroy the person created and loved by the Creator. Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) wrote about the nature of these thoughts: “The spirits of evil wage war against a person with such cunning that the thoughts and dreams they bring to the soul seem to be born in itself, and not from an evil spirit alien to it, acting and trying together.” take cover." Determining the source of thoughts is quite easy. “If, from any movement of the heart, you immediately experience confusion, oppression of the spirit, then this is no longer from above, but from the opposite side - from the evil spirit,” said Righteous John of Kronstadt. What is the reason that we so easily fall under the influence of demonic thoughts, and then pathological fears? The first reason is the escalation of panic in society: they constantly talk about the approaching of some terrible catastrophes, wars and pestilences, they try to keep people in unrelenting tension when one threat is immediately replaced by another. So they try in every possible way to incite fear. The famous modern psychologist V.K. writes about the second reason. Nevyarovich in the book “Soul Therapy”: “The lack of constant internal work on self-control, spiritual sobriety and conscious management of one’s thoughts, described in detail in the ascetic patristic literature, also affects. One can also believe, with a greater or lesser degree of obviousness, that some thoughts, which, by the way, are always almost felt as alien and even forced, violent, actually have a nature alien to humans, being demonic. According to patristic teaching, a person is often unable to discern the true source of his thoughts, and the soul is permeable to the demonic elements. Only experienced ascetics of holiness and piety, with a bright soul already purified by prayer and fasting, are able to detect the approach of darkness. Souls covered with sinful darkness often do not feel or see this, because in the dark the dark is poorly distinguished.” We get caught on our own?