I Palmer. Psychological Briefing, Prevention Or Priming? or, How many psychiatrists does it take to change a mind?

Fear Fear is a prerequisite for the diagnosis of PTSD, no fear, no diagnosis. The word fear derives from the Old English to lie in wait or ambush. It describes an unpleasant, often strong, emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. Synonyms include dread, which adds the idea of intense reluctance to face or meet a person or situation and suggests aversion as well as anxiety. Fright implies the shock of sudden, startling fear. Alarm suggests a sudden and intense awareness of immediate danger. Panic implies unreasoning and overmastering fear causing hysterical activity. Terror implies the most extreme degree of fear. Trepidation adds to dread the implications of timidity, trembling, and hesitation. For those in good mental health, fear is a transitory emotion.There are many theories of emotions. Cannon 1929 (3) proposed the fight or flight (or freeze) paradigm seeing the experience of emotion as entirely separate from its physiological form and arguing that both emotions and physical reactions take place independently. Schachter and Singer 1964 (4) suggested that emotions were all to do with attributions made about what was happening. In their theory, the social setting determined the type of emotion experienced and the physiological response determined the strength of that reaction. Lazarus and McCleary 1951 (5) suggested that emotion occurs when a situation is deemed relevant to a person’s central life concerns. This involved appraisal of threat followed by coping responses, which may be either or both cognitive or physiological, conscious or unconscious (denial or rationalisation) and result in freeze, flight or fight; the threat is then reappraised and a feedback loop initiated. Weiner 1985 (6) stressed the importance of attribution about a situation, threat / non-threat, good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant etc., and suggested that causality is sought in order to check attributions. Averill 1980 (7) proposed his Social Construction Theory in which an individual’s genetic and physiological makeup form the physical basis of an appraisal made in terms of social norms and roles.This theory allows a range of social actions to take place within a context that is socially agreed and understood; such actions however, will only be transitory as emotion is not a permanent state of affairs. He suggested that emotions are, to a degree at least, controllable (despite many believing the contrary); for example, in some societies, bereavement requires a display of high emotion whereas others require emotional continence. This is a useful way of considering fear in the context of military culture where the expression of fear is discouraged, whilst its omnipresence is tacitly acknowledged as ‘part of the job’. Most research and debate on emotions relate to negative emotions, however, there are positive emotions. Argyll and Crosland 1987 (8) studied positive emotions and identified four dimensions namely: absorption (either intraor interpersonal and social), potency (the feeling of being capable and active at sport, work, or more intimate pleasures), altruism and spiritual (personally meaningful experiences). Military training aims to inculcate such positive emotions.