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The disappearance of fear: Why do people with anxiety disorders often have trouble letting go of the past?
Fear extinction is a complex and important phenomenon in psychology, especially for people with anxiety disorders. The anxiety and fear these patients often experience, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), reflect that they are often unable to move on from past experiences, even when they are no longer faced with the same threat in their lives. This article will explore the mechanism of the disappearance of fear and why some people are unable to release the shadows of the past.
The disappearance and extinction process of fear
Extinction is a behavioral phenomenon that occurs in operant and classical conditioning when a conditioned response that is no longer reinforced gradually weakens over time.
The main principle of extinction is that when a reinforced behavior no longer produces the expected consequences, the frequency of the behavior will gradually decrease. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus appears alone and no longer foreshadows the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will gradually cease. For example, a dog that has been trained to salivate in response to a ticking sound will stop salivating if it is deprived of food for a long period of time. This process is particularly important in patients with anxiety disorders.
Extinction Failure in Anxiety Disorders
Many anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, are thought in part to be the result of a failure to extinguish conditioned fears.
Research shows that people with anxiety disorders often face fears that they fail to successfully subside. In some cases, they may be unable to learn new associations, leading to repetitive fears and anxieties. This failure to extinct may be related to the biological mechanisms of the brain. Researchers have begun to explore the role of brain structures (such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex) and specific neurotransmitter systems (such as GABA and NMDA). .
Effective Extinction Procedures
For extinction to be effective, the extinction procedure must be performed consistently.
Extinction procedures need to be consistent or their effectiveness may be compromised. When the reinforcement for a behavior disappears, even if emotional rebound behaviors may occur in the short term, the long-term challenges still require effort to face these challenges. Especially in educational settings, by not reacting to certain problematic behaviors (such as yelling or interrupting others), it is possible for students to gradually overcome these behaviors.
Changes in Emotions and Behavior
After extinction begins, individuals may experience a phenomenon called extinction burst, which is a sudden increase in the frequency of responses over a short period of time. This situation can be understood as an emotional reaction caused by the individual's strong demand for previous behaviors suddenly being unable to be realized. In educational practice, dealing with time challenges associated with challenging behaviors can often be frustrating, but adjusting expectations and strategies can lead to long-term improvement.
The biological mechanisms of anxiety and fear
Fear extinction is the basic principle of exposure therapy, a common treatment for anxiety disorders.
Through exposure therapy, various factors that influence fear responses are gradually introduced, prompting the patient to learn new non-fear associations. Research has also shown that neurotransmitters such as dopamine and glutamate play an important role in this process. Using modern neuroimaging techniques, we can observe changes in brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and amygdala during the fear extinction process.
Future Outlook
As the science of fear extinction grows, researchers are searching for more effective treatments to help people with anxiety disorders let go of the haunting past. By better understanding the biological basis and behavioral patterns of fear, we may be able to develop new treatment strategies to help these patients come out of the haze and find peace of mind.
In the face of the challenges of fear and anxiety, can we find more effective ways to guide patients to release the baggage of the past?
