Fear may range from a low-grade anxiety that is hardly visible externally to a terror that is so dramatic as to be in itself terrifying. As anxiety mounts, some visible signs are a working of the jaw and licking of the lips; yawning in an attempt to compensate for dryness in the mouth (fear inhibits salivation); breaking out into a cold sweat; pallor; and a tendency to tremble. The word 'terror' derives from the same root as 'trembling,' which in extreme fear may overwhelm the entire body. Contraction of the system may be so extreme that the person's hair stands on end (the scalp and other body skin contracts); and circulation may be so withdrawn from the extremities and musculature that the person can no longer remain standing and must collapse. According to Darwin, the eyes and mouth are widely opened and the eyebrows raised; 'the breathing is laboured; the wings of the nostrils are wildly dilated . . . the uncovered and protruding eyeballs are fixed on the object of terror; or they may roll restlessly from side to side.' The pupils of the eyes also become dilated in a reaction that is normally explained as a need to take in every possible detail of the emergency situation. Also, as Darwin noted, the hands and arms spread out rigidly in an expression opposite to the clenching of anger. Darwin's original point that fear and anger were antithetical expressions is supported by the modem evidence, although, as proposed earlier, they have their roots in the same basic emergency reaction.

In the earlier table contrasting fear and anger, fear is seen as a 'charge stroke' in a basic emergency reaction of fear-charge followed by anger-discharge. But anger is not the only discharge; the alternatives are Tight or flight.' In either case, the muscle system is activated after the initial gasp of fear and moment of wide eyed 'freezing' to take in the situation. The person bursts forward with a lunge of attack, or turns and runs in the opposite direction, chest heaving with panic, eyes darting in all directions to seek out avenues of escape. This can be described as a state of 'hard' flight. But there is another possibility: if protection is at hand in the form of a stronger companion (for example the mother, in the case of a frightened infant), the flight will tend to be soft, a snuggling in for protection, which is followed surprisingly quickly in the case of primates, such as monkeys, by a peeking out toward the danger again in a spirit of curiosity. Even hard flight ends in the same place, if all goes well: a place of protection where the frightened animal or person may get his or her breath back and orient him or herself again with a sense of security. Human mothers who breastfeed their infants even after the first year, when the infant has become mobile, know how the most active and independent child can be instantly reassured after a moment of panic when it rushes to the mother demanding the breast. If the panic has been extreme, the child will burst into tears on arriving at the mother, before snuggling in for comfort. The tears seem to discharge tension.

The process can be summarized:

Stage 1) TERROR ('CHARGE'—gasp of air inward)

Stage 2) SUSPENSION (momentary freezing)

Stage 3) FIGHT (DISCHARGE—breath let out in attack) or FLIGHT (DISCHARGE-through motor 'hard' flight away, or through soft flight to protection, followed by tears and comfort).

Distress situations occur when the person is stuck in the suspension of stage 2 or in the stage 3 state of hard flight and panic or fight. EFA with fear aims to lead the person toward the state of protection and comfort that, in fact, as a biological organism he or she is seeking. Stage 2, 'suspension,' contains the reactions of both fright rigidity and fright paralysis, as mentioned in Chapter 2. The first condition seems to occur when the organism is 'frozen' but if mobilized would rush to the attack. The hardness of the musculature demonstrates readiness to fight. The second condition is a sign of extreme terror. It is as if the organism can neither run nor fight so it runs inside—all sensation is limited to images of flight in the brain. For practical purposes, EFA does not need to distinguish between these states unless the difference is conspicuous. Extremely rigid musculature may show readiness for attack, and there may be other signs of blocked or impending rage. But unless this is very obvious, it is best to treat all immobility as fear.

On a less intense but persistent level, anxiety has its own dynamic. It can start with either anticipated joy or fear—the sensation of excitement, for example before an event that promises to be pleasurable, is an identical sensation in the upper abdomen to the sensation of fear. Both situations of anticipation are mobilizing sensation in the main center of autonomic nervous activity, the solar plexus. Only as the respective situations develop do the sensations develop differently: increasing joy feels clearly different from increasing fear. But in either case, the sensations may run into an emotional block that is anchored in a rigidity of the muscles, which might express movements of joy or fear. Instead of the joy or fear being felt intensely and magnified through spontaneous movement, they again are perceived as anxiety, a feeling of narrowness or choking. This sensation may persist or it may be discharged 'sideways,' as it were, through small-scale harmless actions. An example would be a person excited or fearful before a party, who discharges the anxiety through repeated small adjustments of the clothes or repeated trips to the bathroom.

To sum this up, anxiety develops as follows:

Stage 1) FEAR or EXCITEMENT (TENSION in area of solar plexus)

Stage 2) MOVEMENT OF SENSATION AGAINST BLOCK

Stage 3) PERSISTENT ANXIETY or SUBSTITUTE DISCHARGE.

Experiencing

Simulating fear and terror is harmless for most people, but may be dangerous for some: some of us have experienced severe terror in infancy that has, in the Reichian view, become 'blocked' as a series of muscle tensions affecting the whole body, but most specifically the breathing apparatus and often the muscles of neck, jaw, and eyes. We do not necessarily know if we block in this way, so it is best to be cautious and not exaggerate, and always have a friend with you for these simulations, no matter how harmless they seem to be. Once blocked terror is triggered, it is not easy to stop. And do not attempt to imitate 'running panic' if you have any history of high blood pressure or heart problems. If you are going to try these exercises, read the section on fear emergency first, and get your partner to read it too.

1) Stand facing your partner at arm's length. Look him or her in the eye. Make sure both of you are going to stay serious. (There are many temptations to laugh or smile at these 'ridiculous exercises'.) Raise your hands just in front of your shoulders with the palms toward your partner and the fingers splayed open in an expression of 'warding off.' Now simultaneously open your eyes and mouth very wide, being sure to raise the tops of your eyelids high and to raise your eyebrows high as as possible. Now gasp air inward as much as possible, inflating your upper chest to the maximum. Make the gasp audible. Hold your breath for a moment with your mouth and eyes still wide open and your upper chest full. Look at your partner's eyes. Then let go of your breath, let your eyes close and your mouth slacken as you let the breath out sharply and fully. Pause an instant, then repeat the procedure. Do not, since there is a danger of hyperventilation, repeat it if you feel dizzy or unsteady on your feet. (If you do feel dizzy, sit down at once.)

Be aware of what you feel in that moment when you have taken in the gasp and you are 'frozen.' Is it the desire to smile (appease)? To hit out? To run away? To scream or yell? Do you 'flash' on any person or situation that has frightened you in the past? Or is the whole exercise dead and mechanical for you? (If so, this is not necessarily a sign that you are beyond fear, but possibly that you tend to block it.) A healthy person will be able to let him or herself feel some real fear in this simulation, without becoming overwhelmed. You may feel quite 'charged' afterward, with tingling sensations, but this will subside. It can, paradoxically, be quite a good experience to go into fear in this way. It is a relief to know that one can feel fear but remain safe, not be carried away.

If you feel comfortable with the first simulation,

2) you can try a version while lying on your back on the floor, knees up and feet flat. Have your partner stand to one side and above you and 'loom' over you. Raise your hands in the warding off gesture, and proceed as in 1). Sigh out a few times afterwards. In this position you may feel more fear. You can accentuate it by pressing your neck and the back of your head against the floor as you gasp in. If you find your legs beginning to shake or tremble, do not worry: this may feel 'insecure,' but letting yourself feel it may, paradoxically, add to your sense of security. (Fear of fear is often worse than fear itself.)

3) In the same position, lying prone on the floor, this time without your partner looming over you, experiment with running panic—start drumming your feet quickly on the floor as if running, pull your shoulders back and press them against the floor as if pushing behind you, push with your hands against the floor, roll your eyes wildly from side to side. Keep breathing, noisily if possible, or let out a yell if you feel like it.

Arrange with your partner beforehand to call out for you to stop after about twenty seconds. Don't get completely carried away in this. You may feel some fear, though, enough to understand the expression. You may also feel some relief compared to the previous simulations, since this time your body is in action, you are not remaining in a suspended state but releasing accumulated tension. It is a relief to run.

4) A much milder simulation is simply to see if you can imitate anxiety. Sit down in a chair and remain still. Imagine, perhaps, that you are waiting for an important and somewhat threatening appointment in a place where there is no possibility of diversion and nowhere to move (let's say a small bare waiting room without magazines where you are left alone). You might start by clenching and unclenching your fists in a restless manner, or fidgeting. Take note of what you tend to do in imitating this anxiety—does your chest stiffen, do you work your jaw, do you hold your legs and buttocks tight, do your eyes become rigid?, and so on.

You might notice in these simulations that there are two main ingredients in a fear situation that is getting worse: first the impossibility of starting to move, second the sense of isolation and of having no one to turn to. EFA for fear must concentrate first on getting the person moving, second on providing contact and comfort.