With enviable regularity in practical work, we come across “invisible” avoidances of clients in their daily lives. Essentially, any avoidance is an attempt to avoid contact with the object of your fear. Avoidance becomes “invisible” when it begins to seem to you that your behavior is completely justified. I will give examples. Let's start with the usual avoidances. For example, you are afraid of heart palpitations that occur during physical activity. In this case, you can try to spare yourself, give up sports and household stress. In general, as soon as you notice the feeling of a heartbeat, move to a lying position, on a sofa or bed. This is the most common, direct avoidance, which is often found in anxiety and phobic disorders. And invisible avoidances are often a kind of continuation, development of ordinary, direct avoidances. For example, you may not use household chemicals (or shift this responsibility to someone close to you) , because you think that such chemistry is harmful to you. Or you can avoid using a microwave oven and only heat food in a frying pan, since the radiation from such an appliance is definitely harmful. Or you can buy things only online, wash them and try them on only after washing them. In order not to catch any infection. If you look closely, you can say that “invisible” avoidances are: - less conscious - more “justified” (by your internal logic) - more selective - often relate to the topic of harm from microbes, chemicals and other harmful factors And if in the case of direct avoidance we are talking only about avoidance, then a mix of two or three reactions already appears here: avoidance, hypercontrol and doubt. That is, you try to control potential dangers, avoid them. And when you avoid, you often add doubts to the extent to which you have protected yourself from potential dangers. Thus, you may doubt whether you washed your hands thoroughly enough, rinsed the dishes, wiped the surface, whether you dressed well enough, etc. Accordingly, If direct avoidances are characteristic of anxiety-phobic disorders, then “invisible” avoidances are characteristic of obsessive disorders. For example, for obsessive disorder, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), hypochondria, pathological doubts, body dysmorphic disorder. Why is this important to know? Because for anxiety disorders, it is often enough to simply remove avoidance and the condition improves dramatically. With obsessive disorders, this will no longer be enough, precisely because of the presence of hypercontrol and painful doubts. It is important to remove these neurotic reactions BEFORE you begin to work with avoidances. What “invisible” avoidances have you encountered? I will be glad if you click the “say thank you” button under the article, I will be glad to receive suggestions for topics for articles in the comments! Have a nice day! You can subscribe to my articles and blog posts here Do you want to learn how to manage your neurosis? Take an online psychocorrection course individually or in a group!