1It helps to have one small set of moves you use whatever the worry is wearing today. Not a fresh technique for each fear, just the same few steps, learned well enough to reach for without thinking.
Anxiety changes costume. This month it is contamination, next month it is being late, next year it is your health. If every version needs its own method you are permanently starting again, and remembering which method applies becomes another job. A short portable routine you can run in a queue, in a corridor, in bed at two in the morning, is worth more than a clever technique you only half recall.
Islamic evidence
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer (Quran 2:45). What is named is two things a person can return to, whatever the particular trouble turns out to be.
“Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble”
Qur'an 2:45
Psychological evidence
A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing exposure with cognitive therapy across the anxiety disorders found that exposure based procedures carry much of the therapeutic weight, whichever diagnosis is in front of you, which supports having one approach that travels. It also sets a limit on what a calming routine can claim. A meta-analysis of attention bias modification, a trainable technique for social anxiety, found the benefits inconsistent, so a portable skill is a way to stay in the situation rather than a treatment in its own right.
Ougrin D. (2011). BMC psychiatry · doi
Heeren A, Mogoașe C, Philippot P, McNally RJ. (2015). Clinical psychology review · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Something you can reach for without thinking is the only thing available to you when you are frightened.
Feedback
none yet2Coming back after a bad patch is quicker than getting there was the first time. Most people expect the opposite, which is why a setback feels so final.
What you learned did not vanish. It went out of reach for a while, usually because something else was going on in your life. Pick up a rung or two below where you stopped and you will generally find yourself back at your old level in a fraction of the original time. Knowing that beforehand is what stops a rough fortnight turning into a decision to give up.
Islamic evidence
Do not lose heart or despair (Quran 3:139). The address is to people whose attempt has just gone badly, not to people who are doing well.
“Do not lose heart or despair- if you are true believers you have the upper hand”
Qur'an 3:139
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis found that a drug promoting fear extinction enhanced the effects of exposure therapy, which is evidence that exposure works through new learning rather than by wearing fear away, and learning is the kind of thing that can be held and recovered. Worth adding that when all the trials of that drug were pooled at the level of individual patients, its advantage turned out smaller and more conditional than the early results suggested. Neither piece of work set out to measure how quickly people recover from a setback.
Norberg MM, Krystal JH, Tolin DF. (2008). Biological psychiatry · doi
Mataix-Cols D, Fernández de la Cruz L, Monzani B, Rosenfield D, Andersson E, Pérez-Vigil A, Frumento P, de Kleine RA, Difede J, Dunlop BW, Farrell LJ, Geller D, Gerardi M, Guastella AJ, Hofmann SG, Hendriks GJ, Kushner MG, Lee FS, Lenze EJ, Levinson CA, McConnell H, Otto MW, Plag J, Pollack MH, Ressler KJ, Rodebaugh TL, Rothbaum BO, Scheeringa MS, Siewert-Siegmund A, Smits JAJ, Storch EA, Ströhle A, Tart CD, Tolin DF, van Minnen A, Waters AM, Weems CF, Wilhelm S, Wyka K, Davis M, Rück C, the DCS Anxiety Consortium, Altemus M, Anderson P, Cukor J, Finck C, Geffken GR, Golfels F, Goodman WK, Gutner C, Heyman I, Jovanovic T, Lewin AB, McNamara JP, Murphy TK, Norrholm S, Thuras P. (2017). JAMA psychiatry · doi
Review detail
Why it works. The learning is still there even when your performance drops, so you are starting from a foundation and not from nothing.
Feedback
none yet3When a child digs in, try reading it as frightened rather than difficult. Most of them want to get this right and simply do not yet know how.
Refusal that looks like defiance is usually fear sitting on top of a missing skill, and those two call for different responses. Treat it as defiance and you end up enforcing. Treat it as fear and you end up teaching. Children tend to read which one you have settled on well before you say it out loud.
Islamic evidence
God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak (Quran 4:28). Human weakness is spoken of here as something to be met with lightening rather than with pressure.
“God wishes to lighten your burden; man was created weak”
Qur'an 4:28
Psychological evidence
Reviews of how exposure works describe it as new learning rather than simple wearing down, built by varying the setting, letting go of safety props and allowing expectations to be proved wrong. A separate review reports that neither the amount fear drops during a session nor the fear level at the end predicts outcome, so visible distress is a poor read on whether the work is landing. Both are theoretical reviews of mechanism, not trials of what a therapist's stance does.
Craske MG, Treanor M, Conway CC, Zbozinek T, Vervliet B. (2014). Behaviour research and therapy · doi
Craske MG, Kircanski K, Zelikowsky M, Mystkowski J, Chowdhury N, Baker A. (2008). Behaviour research and therapy · doi
Review detail
Why it works. A child who can tell you think they are trying has much less reason to fight you.
When not to. Reading every refusal as fear can miss a child who is refusing because something outside the room is wrong and needs looking into.