Counseling in a Time of Anxiety (podcast $)

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” — Arthur Somers Roche, author

Rising Violence

In conversations with therapists we’ve noticed a recent drop-off in clients bookings. The curve of this decline seems to be the inverse of the global anxiety created by Donald Trump in world, national, and community affairs. I want to think this through.

There is no question that among other things, Mr. Trump is a psychopath. In his case, the main presenting symptoms are hostility, dishonesty, the desire to manipulate, and a need to subjugate.

This does not mean all that he says is false, though truth plays little role, but that his intentions are unclear and he tends toward violence. This is not all that extreme a statement since most high profile people have social personality disorders. If you didn’t have a disorder before gaining celebrity, it’s guaranteed that celebrity will create disorder in you.

Psychopathy is a common, latent, spectrum disorder. That is to say, it hides until it’s triggered. This behavior is also present in cases of inter-personal and family violence, child abuse, and assault.

We excuse people who are not chronic psychopaths, but we should not. We believe psychopathic behavior is a natural response to extreme and unexpected situations. If you believe that it’s okay for people to yell and then fight, or if you occasionally yell and then fight, then this is the limit of your own sanity.

“In 2016, more countries experienced violent conflict than at any point in almost 30 years… Countries in the Americas have the worst homicide rates by a wide margin... Extremist groups today have unprecedented access to the general public through the internet… Political instability engenders organised crime…” from A New Era of Conflict and Violence, United Nations 2020 and Beyond (United Nations 2020)

Anger, while it always precedes violence, is not the same as violence. There is a limit to how unhinged one can be and still consider oneself sane. Anger, when managed, falls on the sane side of behavior. Violence falls on the insane side, and violence can be verbal as well as physical.

DJT is interesting in two respects. First, a violent presentation is his standard personality. And second, this represents most people’s feelings. That is, most people are in a bellicose mood that endorses anti-social behavior.

While we like to think that we’re controlling our destiny, it’s just as likely that our destiny is controlling us. That is, DJT may not be causing current events as he is the product of them.

Outward and Inward Presentations

As you approach the limit of your sanity you split into two parts: the outward presentation and the inward feeling. In extreme anxiety, the outward presentation is the fighting response while the inward feeling is fear. Other responses are to flee or faint, but fighting is the empowered response. Fighting is the response you would expect from the population of the USA since they feel themselves to be the entitled owners of world assets.

Citizens of the USA have little fear or memory of defeat. It is unfortunate that one’s understanding of defeat usually comes from being defeated, and the USA has few defeats to remember.

I feel lucky to have been aware of the defeat of the US in Vietnam and personally experiencing defeat in my mountain climbing ventures. The typical rejection of defeat, as expressed through the media and entertainment industries, creates a poor understanding and unrealistic attitude about actual threats and realistic responses (Nguyen 2021; Philipps 2025).

This reflects our unrealistic attitude toward misunderstanding, which we see as personal failure. This reflects our misunderstanding of learning, which we misconstrue as success. Learning is not success; learning is failure to understand. That is axiomatic: you learn by failing to understand. There is no other way to learn.

Even our language misleads us as we cannot distinguish between failing to understand and personally failing. As a result, we cannot approach learning correctly but instead think of learning as reward. Just look at the education system that offers rewards not for learning but for repeating. Repeating is not learning. You learn nothing by repeating.

Consider a walk through the woods. If you follow the trail then you learn nothing about the woods. All you learn about is the trail. To learn about the woods you must go off the trail. Then you learn about the topography, vegetation, regeneration, and decay. All of these are irrelevant to following the trail unless they fall on it.

Fear and Learning

The lesson of Donald Trump and his administration is fear. Fear underlies their whole mindset. It may look like strength in action and single-mindedness but there is no strength to it. It’s entirely fear, as fear is the foundation of anger and violence. And the only thing that you learn from fear is ignorance. You learn how ignorant and powerless you are… unless you’re a psychopath. Psychopaths never learn.

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