Fear

Fear of falling and fear of separation from mother seem to be the earliest fears, and they are associated since all falling is away from mother. Other early fears, such as of looming figures, of being alone in the dark, or of abrupt movement, can also be linked with the basic fear of falling. This may be why, even for an adult, the cures for fear are support, reassurance, and comfort—exactly what a child receives from its mother.

The response to fear in a child is as self evident as the response to grief: to offer contact, warmth, and acceptance. But adult fear of fear often blocks this. How many adults who harshly refuse a nightlight to their frightened children would be honestly unafraid of being left alone at night in a dark field? To a small child, a room is as unknown and almost as big as a field.

The world of an adult is very sure. Childhood fears seem irrational and ignorant by comparison. I can remember as a small child, by myself, seeing an enormous fireball descend during a thunderstorm and burst with a pop above the pavement. When I told my parents, they answered that 'according to scientists, fireballs do not exist,' but now that I had seen one, they knew that fireballs did exist. I am grateful. It took science another twenty years to admit that fireballs, although theoretically impossible, do exist. This is to me an example of trust: my parents trusted me in this instance, even though I was frightened. I could therefore trust them. Trust, for a child, is linked to resolution of fear. Mistrustful, paranoid adults have usually been deeply frightened as children and have received no reassurance. Even worse, sometimes the parents to whom they turn for reassurance are in themselves dangerous and frightening. The worst 'double bind' of all must be for a child to run frightened to a parent and then be received with frightening anger.

The adult's fear of the child's fear is as destructive as the frustration of frustration. In some children, the development of specific emotions simply comes to a halt. As always, the parent's acceptance of an emotion in his or her self is the only guarantee that it will be accepted in the child. This is why it is so important for adults to share their emotions with their children, even if the emotion is fear. Even children two years old can be seen consoling a parent who shows grief or fear. Of course, it would be wrong for the parent to place him or herself repeatedly in a position of needing to be mothered by the child. The child needs the parent to be strong, but also human. We often become inhuman because of our fear of our own emotions. As one patient in therapy said wonderingly, 'How could I be so frightened of just me?'.

There is no need to propose simulations of fear for a child, since the experience of fear is rarely blocked. (If it is blocked, and the child is often frozen or paralyzed with anxiety, it would be overwhelming to attempt to activate the underlying fear.) Chronic fear or anxiety in a child require professional help, since they usually overlie some family situation which the parents cannot be objective enough to resolve with the child.

For acute fear or anxiety in a child, the best initial advice to an adult must be: 'Think small.' Be the child, identify with it. The fear will be easy to understand. Then become an adult again, and offer support from your strength.

Joy

At first glance, it is difficult to imagine how joy can be repressed in children—they are so full of it. Babies actually shriek with joy, as their hands shoot out and their faces light up. Perhaps an uninhibited adult would also shriek. But this is usually suppressed in the first years of life. A shriek from a two-year-old becomes more noisy than that of a baby. It compels attention. The two-year-old may also jump up and down, or roll on the ground and jump up again. How many parents allow this? A cynic might say that the joy of babies is tolerated because the volume of their shrieks is limited and, besides, a happy baby is flattering to its parents since they must be the source of the joy. A two-year-old, however, may be joyful about something else altogether—the appearance of a cat walking across the lawn or the sight of another child throwing a ball. This joy, innocent as it is, is often censored as if it were somehow indecent. It all touches too much adult envy, envy-avoidance (what would the neighbors think?) and pleasure-anxiety. Or the noise of a joyful child touches the nerves of an adult who is depressed, that is, lacking joy, and the layer of anger above the adult's depression is activated.

Joyful children also tend to be dirty. They tend to take their clothes off or to wear the same piece of clothing many days in succession. They are saying yes to life, and this enables them to say no when they are offered food or an activity that they do not like. They are like primitives, self-regulating and unpredictable. And sometimes when they meet an adult, they reach out and meet a wall.

A depressed child is very sad, but out of the reach of Emotional First Aid, since to be depressed so early in life means that things have gone seriously wrong. Children should not need to be cheered up. They are naturally already cheerful. If they have lost their primordial joy, the only thing to bring it back is not EFA, but love.

There is only one way to share joy with a child, and that is-be a child. Forget your sober self, forget what other people might think, and become what you really are underneath. The child will recognize this.

Couples

The sections in previous chapters that discuss Expression, Distress, and Provocation may be useful for couples. Emotional First Aid measures are only valid for third-party situations, not as a means of unravelling the complexities of a relationship in its ups and downs. It helps, however, to recognize emotional expression and distress. And some of the material on Provocation can be applied to the dynamics of the traps in which some couples become stuck because of reciprocity of character structure and blocks.

In the tango of a couple's relationship, one partner often leads. In some cases, the lead alternates according to the field of action. There are variations on the basic step. Some couples, in terms of character structure, are as different and complimentary as sun and moon. Others are more like those twin star systems where the stars rotate around each other but occasionally threaten to collide, with spectacular effects in the way of flares and radiation. Although, at any given time, society tends to impose a norm, the happiness of the couple basically depends on who they are, and the barometer of the happiness is what kind of sexual relationship the couple has. To return to the tango: who leads when and how is less important than whether the dancing couple move in a rhythm that is more energetic and rich than the sum of their two separate rhythms. Whether this is achieved through an identity of rhythm or through a complimentarity is immaterial. Both increase the charge.

The sexual relationship is effected by whatever emotional blocks exist in the relationship. There are physical reasons for this. Letting go to a shared orgasm with the partner means letting go of whatever muscle tensions in the body may be holding back emotion: orgasm is a pulsation that contains many smaller pulsations. If they are blocked, it is blocked. One major pulsation is that of contact and withdrawal. If a couple are out of contact emotionally, or stuck together in a relentless sticky concern that covers up anger, the excitement of coming together sexually after a period of separate activity is diminished. On the muscular level, if one partner has been wanting to cry but unable to express this, he or she may go to bed with a rigid chest and neck, and the abdomen may be held tight to restrain feelings of sadness. This blocks letting go to the excited breathing of sexual contact. This is true of any block: the horizontal barrier to the flow of emotion up and down the body is also a barrier to the flow of sexual sensation.

For this reason, many couples are aware of the connection between problems in their sexual relationship and the need to express blocked emotion. They tend to avoid sexual contact while they 'have something on their chest,' or they take measures to discharge the tension through expressing the emotion. Instinctively, they want to 'feel clear' before making sexual contact. Some of the measures discussed in earlier chapters may be of help here. EFA within the couple is most useful in its self-help dimension. It might be manipulation to assist your partner to express his or her anger. But you can use the same methods to help bring your own anger out.

Contact between the man and woman in a couple can be described on three levels:

Verbal

Emotional

Sexual.

Clearly the levels are interdependent. A character in a Tennessee Williams play remarks, pointing to the bed: 'When a marriage is on the rocks, there's the rocks.' This is an oversimplification given the fact that sexual surrender to the partner is impossible if there is no way open for emotional surrender, and in turn most couples reach at least an agreement to disagree in many areas involving words and ideas. A constantly recurring ideological argument, for example, is likely to hide a deeper emotional or sexual discontent. In a sense, the character in the play is right. The bed is the most honest place in the relationship, where the problems first show. It is difficult to keep up pretenses there for very long. It is also difficult to pretend at the emotional level. It is easier at the verbal level, which is why it is the most superficial level in terms of the real contact between the two organisms. Consequently, many people retreat to the verbal level: bad relationships can survive there, in earnest efforts to resolve cognitive dissonances and 'communications problems.'

This book has nothing to say about relationships at the cognitive level. But some knowledge of EFA, and thus of functioning at the emotional level, can help keep a relationship honest. Perhaps a further book can explore the possibility of Sexual First Aid.