The University of Helsinki - research news
Fear holds the reins
Fear is healthy, and fearlessness is lethal
Week 44 / 2008
Fear is healthy, and fearlessness is lethal. In fact, fear resides in almost every part of the human brain: the amygdaloid nucleus, which registers emotional responses, the hypothalamus, which translates initial reactions into palpitation, the hippocampus, which helps us learn and remember, and so forth.
”It is difficult to even put into words how intensive fear can be and how strongly it controls our lives,” says Jouko Lönnqvist, Professor of Psychiatry.
However, being afraid is also often annoying, as well as harmful. If a person starts avoiding frightening situations, and the associations related to these situations are accumulated, the fear can debilitate the person.
Even in less serious cases, avoidance will not do you any good. Fears should be dealt with, but a person who is reliving the pain needs something to counterbalance this progress.
“You need to feel in control of your life and you need positive experiences,” says Lönnqvist, enunciating a simple everyday recipe for recovering from a traumatic experience.
Becoming overly absorbed in fears can be quite harmful.
“After a serious tragedy, schools, for example, have to be reopened quickly and people need to get back in class,” Lönnqvist says, referring to, among other things, the much discussed school shootings in Finland.
“When dealing with problems, we should be careful not to rely too much on expert help, because people have their own ways of processing things, and individual needs should be taken into consideration. Around one third of those who have had a personal traumatic experience suffer from prolonged symptoms,” says the professor, referring to research results.
“It is only after a few weeks that we can determine who is in need of outside assistance.”
Lönnqvist is examining mental health from the perspective of individual psychology, as well as from the perspective of public health: as a professor at the University of Helsinki, he is focused on individual problems, and as an employee of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, his focus is on the public well-being.
Linkit:
Text: Virve Pohjanpalo
Photo: Meri Siippainen
