Case-Study; Anxiety

Anxiety is an emotion originating in the id. It’s a normal emotion designed to get one aware of impending danger.

Impending danger is sensory input that is funnelled by the ego into the id.

The id then processes the inputs and immediately sends the alert back to the id via the emotion of anxiety. Red alert.

Now occasionally for some people the id fucks up and keeps a person in a constant anxious state for minimal input.

This is where the super-ego steps in and tries to wade in with alternative beliefs (i.e. its all OK). The super-ego tries to wrest control of the ego from the id.

These beliefs can be constructed solely within a person’s mind, or learnt through external input, e.g. therapy.

The role of the beliefs is to help the ego either actively over-ride the id on an ongoing basis or, even better still, re-program the relevant part of the id.

For some poor souls the id doesn’t just control the ego, it even gets to control the super-ego. In these cases the beliefs are aligned with the emotions of anxiety and it is doubly harder to cure the person of their anxiety.

The super-ego may try to discredit the id during sleep time by producing such stupidly anxious dreams that the ego finally starts to doubt the flight or fight messages it is getting form the id.

I suspect that the cause of ‘errors’ in the id that lead to, say, anxiety are just that, digital bits that have been scrambled accidentally. For example, by a period of extended non-sleep where the nightly data re-fresh of the memory just did not occur; you might think this is most likely to happen in a period of genuine anxiety and hence why anxiety is a common problem. These errors can even be passed on to subsequent generations.

Knowing this, what is the best solution…?

1. Dream therapy might be a good one where we give people hallucinogenics while they sleep to maximise the probability of the id being discredited by the ego as the super-ego makes up even weirder dreams.

2. ‘Anxiety’ therapy might also be a good approach. This could be constant simulation of very frightening circumstances in say an Imax theatre, followed by no harmful physical impact. Again the idea is to discredit the messages coming from the id in the eyes of the ego.

But both of these rely on ‘beliefs’ trumping ’emotions’ in the ego. But how to re-program the id so the shitty emotions, the errors in the great flowchart, are removed?

I can’t answer this for now since I need to ponder how the ego sometimes gets to re-program errors in the id. Noting it can also re-program errors in the super-ego, or beliefs, as well.