Word: avoidance
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...Navy, which seems keen to avoid any suggestion of a cover-up, is expected to take six to eight weeks to decide on further action. Opinion polls show the U.S. public does not think Waddle should be court-martialed, and naval history indicates a court-martial is rare for an officer involved in an accident at sea. But with feelings running high in Japan, Waddle is fearful he could be "sacrificed" to maintain good relations with the U.S.'s most important military ally in the Pacific. "He did his level best," said Gittins. "He may have fallen short on that...
...experience sweating, racing heart, difficulty breathing and even a fear of imminent death--all accompanied by an overwhelming need to flee. In addition, much of the time that they are away from the feared object or situation is spent dreading the next encounter and developing elaborate strategies intended to avoid it. "Jeanette," 44, a teacher's assistant, is so terrified of cats that she sends her daughter, 21, into an unfamiliar store to scout around and sound a feline all clear before she enters. The daughter has been walking point this way since age five. "Nora," 50, a social worker...
...human brain may be a sophisticated thing, but there is an awful lot of ancient programming still etched into it. For "Martin," 21, a dental student in London, Ontario, his fear of snakes is so overwhelming that he stapled together pages in a textbook to avoid flipping to a photo of a snake. He often wakes with nightmares that he is sitting in a bar or a stadium and suddenly sees a snake slithering toward him. "It's odd," he says, "because I'm not in situations where I would ever see snakes...
...condition that is so easy to pick up is becoming almost as easy to shake, usually without resort to drugs. What turns up the wattage of a phobia the most is the strategy the phobics rely on to ease their discomfort: avoidance. The harder phobics work to avoid the things they fear, the more the brain grows convinced that the threat is real. "The things you do to reduce anxiety just make it worse," says Barlow. "We have to strip those things away...
...Phobias can beat the stuffing out of sufferers because the feelings they generate seem so real and the dangers they warn of so great. Most of the time, however, the dangers are mere neurochemical lies--and the lies have to be exposed. "Your instincts tell you to escape or avoid," says Phillipson. "But what you really need to do is face down the fear." When you spend your life in a cautionary crouch, the greatest relief of all may come from simply standing...