The fear of fear.

Maybe you know this: the last panic attack was weeks ago — and still you plan your day around it. You check where the exit is. You take the bike instead of the crowded train. You cancel the cinema, "just to be safe". Professionally this pattern is called anticipatory anxiety — in everyday life it feels like a guard who never clocks off. I'm Laura, psychologist & Gestalt therapist, and in this piece we take a closer look at that guard.

How the circle forms: avoidance works — and that is exactly the problem.

Avoidance is not weakness; it is a perfectly logical response: you avoid the situation, and the anxiety drops — immediately, noticeably. From this, your nervous system learns one simple sentence: "The situation was dangerous, and leaving saved us."

Except the sentence isn't true. The situation was never dangerous — it was unpleasant. But because the relief arrives so reliably, avoidance becomes the first answer to anything that even smells of anxiety. The radius shrinks: first the crowded train, then the supermarket, then the restaurant. What remains is a life designed by the anxiety — not by you.

Three steps out of the circle.

1. 1

   Take away the stage — name the fear.

   Anticipatory anxiety lives on staying vague (“something might happen”). Make it concrete: what exactly do you fear? How likely is it — and what would you do if it happened? A fog becomes a question. You can work with questions; you cannot work with fog.

2. 2

   Reverse the direction — in small, held steps.

   The way out leads through the situations, not around them — but not as a test of courage. Choose the smallest step that challenges you without flooding you: two train stops instead of none. Stay until the wave sinks by itself. Exactly this experience — “it rises and it falls, and I am still here” — rewrites the sentence in your nervous system.

3. 3

   Bring the body on board.

   Anticipatory anxiety is future; your body lives in the now. A long exhale, feet on the floor, scanning the room with your senses — these are not tricks, they are the language in which your nervous system understands “all clear”.

What Gestalt therapy does differently.

In my work as a Gestalt therapist I am interested not only in how you leave the circle — but also in what the anxiety is telling. Behind anticipatory anxiety there is often an older pattern: high demands on control, a ban on showing weakness, a life that has grown too narrow in important places. We work in the here and now, a lot with the body — and at your pace. More about my anxiety therapy online. For acute attacks you'll find first aid here: Help with panic attacks.

This text does not replace medical or psychiatric treatment. In an acute crisis: German crisis line 0800 111 0 111 (free, 24/7) — in an emergency call 112.