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I read in one major weekly that there are a number of private clinics in Switzerland that specialize in the treatment of anxiety. For such a luxury business to flourish, you need numerous customers with high payment capabilities or patients in need. Most of these clinics also care for burnout victims, so maybe it's an easy-to-treat phenomenon?

Fear is a normal phenomenon, one of the important stimuli of our behavior. For example, evolution has instilled in us a fear of snakes and spiders, which we cling to even though there are no truly poisonous spiders in our area. Even monkeys have this fear. You throw a plastic snake into a cage with monkeys and they panic even though they were born in a zoo and have never seen a snake. Why this panic? Namely, our reptilian (reticular, reticular) brain reacted. The oldest, inner part that we share with other animals, which has evolved over the last 100 million years. Its main function is to take care of the body and ensure its safety. So the reticular brain works when we feel fear, and we react automatically by fighting, fleeing, or freezing. Its strength is the ability to force us to act quickly in a life or health emergency, it can take place even beyond our awareness. While this brain is responsible for the responses that provide us with immediate physical security, it can often be misled by an imagined threat.

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The question is whether the therapies of fears and phobias have become necessary, because there are more reasons to panic lately, or whether we simply can't control our fears anymore.

When we were kids, we used to play the "fox walks by the road" game, remember? I read that this game comes from the Middle Ages and symbolizes the fear of the plague that can get anyone. Given a "gift" from a fox, we become a carrier ... So we have to catch up with him and give him back before he takes up the empty place after us. What were we afraid of as children? There was no threat of war, although Hupka and Czaja tried to revise the borders, we were vaccinated against smallpox ... Ha, on the way to school we had to be very careful, after all, the priest in religion school threatened: you have an unconfessed sin (and masturbation is a sin!!!) street, car , chopping-chopping and you're in hell! And hell? It is enough to look at the pictures of the Last Judgment, which the catechist did not spare his children and ordered to draw his own tombstone. Soon, however, the fear of hell turned into fun and play, even the fear of the atomic bomb faded thanks to a reasonable world policy, only girls were afraid of unwanted pregnancy, and boys – a newsagent with a needle... Pope Ratzinger brightened the horizon by removing Limbus puerorum, and Pope Francis even put hell in question... But he soon backed away from it a bit, because how so? Heaven without hell is like a soccer game without a goal. Despite this, the fear of Catholics before the abyss of hell is slowly becoming a thing of the past, Protestants have long since gotten rid of it. Recently published research says that in Austria only 39 percent. believes in divine omnipotence, and only one in five believes in resurrection, but superstitions are doing well. Everyone wants to be healthy and, above all, to die healthy. It starts with the little things. Label "fit for consumption until ...." is read as "immediately poisonous from..." One of the former greatest fears, namely - not having enough food, turned into the fear of being overweight. Die-hard followers of "bio" recite the advantages of such a way of eating as credo, the staff of a vegan restaurant refuse to heat a portion of baby mash, because it contains 8 percent. animal protein!

The Swiss government has been ordering the so-called fear barometer. Opinion pollsters poll the nation about its fears, and they turn out to be more and more diverse. In the days of the Club of Rome, it was the threat of energy deficit, radioactive contamination and air pollution. In 2000, it was found that the fear of crime was decreasing. The Institute of Criminology of the University of Zurich therefore looked at these data more closely. And what has it turned out? People with right-wing views are more afraid than those with left-wing views. French-speakers are more afraid than German-speakers, and they are least afraid of ... non-religious people. In the last 15 years, the highest on the barometer scale are fear of unemployment and concern for material security in old age, but also these, together with concerns about health, the EU, road traffic and safety have a downward trend. The only noticeable increase is the concern related to the growing number of foreigners (currently over 2.1 million, including 1.4 million from EU/EFTA countries out of a total population of 8.5 million). Modern fears seem to be buried much deeper in our psyche. It turns out that 60 percent. The Swiss believe that homeopathy is as effective as conventional (academic) medicine and would like to have alternative medicine in their constitution. A similar number are convinced that good deeds result in good karma, animals have a soul, visits to places of power (chakras) strengthen spiritually, and telepathic communication between people is possible. Thus, it turns out that more people believe in esotericism than in God, which in turn, it is comforting and should cause less fear. In the end, it will be difficult to wage war in the name of homeopathy. Image: Edvard Munch, Geschrei, 1895 © The Munch Museum/The Munch Ellingsen Group/VBK/Wien 2009Tobermory