The 8 Differences Between Functional Fear And Pathological Fear
At some point in our lives, we have all experienced episodes of more or less intense fear depending on the experiences we have had to live through or the threatening stimuli that are presented to us. It is normal that this is the case, given that fear is one of the most basic human emotions and is something we experience as a survival mechanism and response to the unknown.
Now, not all versions of this emotion are useful to us; There are some that contribute to wearing down our mental health. Therefore, in this article we will explore the differences between functional fear and pathological fear taking into account that the second is closely linked to anxiety disorders such as phobias.
How to distinguish between pathological fear and functional fear?
It is important to keep in mind that fear is a psychophysiological response resulting from natural selection; Animals that are unable to experience this emotion have a disadvantage that makes it difficult for them to survive long enough to reproduce, since they are devoid of an important instinctive tendency to move away from what could be very dangerous. Thus, In vertebrates, the inability to experience fear is considered a health problem
That is why fear is so important, since it has allowed us to overcome all types of threats since we were children; It is a survival mechanism that has been of vital importance for our species. The few individuals who do not experience the emotion fear are considered to have a neurological problem, caused by a brain injury or a malformation in the brain.
However, it is essential to know the differences between pathological fear and functional fear, because There are cases in which, without intending to, we internalize dysfunctional ways of managing this emotion ; ways that place us in a vicious circle of anguish and anxiety, since our predictions about what will happen to us make us unable to learn which situations are really dangerous and which are not.
1. Functional fear
Functional fear is the “normal” fear that people experience throughout their lives in situations that pose a real threat to us. It is an adaptive fear that allows us to successfully overcome the various risks and dangers that may occur to us daily
Functional fear only generates a feeling of loss of control over the body in situations of serious imminent danger, and physiologically it helps us launch a series of organic processes that allow us to quickly flee from that threatening stimulus or confront it in an appropriate manner.
Another characteristic of functional fear is that it allows us to act quickly and without thinking, something that is very useful in cases in which the response must be immediate and proportional to the type of threat we experience.
In addition to that, this functional or normal fear is transitory and temporary, and has a specific duration assigned to the time in which the stimulus poses a threat to us. Once this threat is overcome, the fear disappears and we return to the normal state
Functional fear is a biological equipment that human beings have had since the dawn of our species, something without which we would hardly have been able to survive until today.
Pathological fear does not consist of a normal biophysiological reaction to a stimulus that poses a real threat to the individual, but rather is related to the development of states of fear or terror in the face of certain life situations that are experienced as threatening by the individual. person when in reality they do not pose any real danger.
Unlike what happens in cases of normal or adaptive fear, pathological fear makes us lose control in a given situation but does not allow us to act adaptively to the demands of the experienced threat, but instead blocks us and makes it impossible for us to react logically to any situation
This type of pathological fear makes us more prone to harboring paranoid thoughts in which we assume that any stimulus is a sign of danger, even when assuming that means taking too many things for granted.
Pathological fear causes us to be afraid of fear itself, which ends up causing us to develop anxiety problems and other pathologies that directly affect our mental health.
In conclusion, we can define pathological fear as a maladaptive response that some people develop by generalizing the fear response in situations where it does not provide any benefit or is useful in any way.
In addition to that, in these cases self-fulfilling prophecy is also common a phenomenon that occurs when the person fears suffering states of anxiety or fear in certain situations and ends up experiencing that same feared problem.
Summary of the differences between functional fear and pathological fear
So, in short, the key ideas to keep in mind to differentiate between normal fear and pathological fear are the following:
