Imagine this situation - you decided to get rid of your specific fear, your specific phobia. For example, from agoraphobia. That is, in practice, you are afraid to leave the house. What will your efforts amount to? In fact, you will try for exactly one thing - for your behavior to change. Yes, for it to change, you will have to try really hard to manage your thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. It is what it is. But ultimately, it is your behavior that you will have to change. To be even more precise, you will have to change your reactions. Reactions both to the fear itself and the reactions of your internal tension at the moments when you feel fear. And in order for absolutely any new behavior to take hold, so that it becomes stable for you, you will have to use reinforcement. After all, until you strengthen the reflex, the habit, it will not work. Or it will work, but not when you need it and not as often as you need it. Reinforcement can be positive and negative. To put it very, very simply, negative reinforcement is any negative emotion that you capture when faced with fear. Both from fear itself and when assessing your state at the moment of fear. For example, you are trying to get rid of agoraphobia and set yourself the task of trying to leave the house. When you do this purely mechanically, can you have negative experiences? Easily! Both from the fact that you have fear, and from the fact that you are unable to achieve a goal (for example, go to a conventional store). What does negative reinforcement do? It stimulates the avoidance response. Moreover, it stimulates at a primitive but powerful physiological level. And every time you negatively reinforce your attempts at changing behavior, you are essentially reinforcing the fear. Add three facts here - negative reinforcement works usefully when: A) You apply it against a specific behavior, and not to an emotion (since emotion is caused by different types of behavior) B) When the frequency of negative reinforcement is much less than positive reinforcement (ideally something then about 1 in 7) B) When you have an internal resource This is what happens. If you have a phobia, it is VERY important for you to learn how to turn off negative reinforcement. Otherwise, you can live in your fear indefinitely. Do you notice how you reinforce yourself negatively? I would be glad if you click the “say thank you” button under the article, it will encourage me to write the next one... Have a nice day! You can subscribe to my articles and blog posts here Do you want to get rid of your neurosis? Take an online psychocorrection course individually or in a group!