Don't Fight Strawmen out of the Past

For example, a patient of mine became jittery a n d anxious in business meetings, theaters, church, or in a n y formal gathering. "Groups of people" were the common denominator. Without realizing it, he was attempting to react to some environment out of his past where "groups of people" were a significant factor. He remembered that when a child in elementary school, he had wet his pants, and a cruel teacher had called him up in front of the class and humiliated him. He reacted with feelings of humiliation and shame. Now, one factor in the situation

"groups of people"—was reacted to as if it were the entire past situation. When he was able to "see" that he was "acting as if" he were a 10-year-old schoolboy, as if every gathering was an elementary school class, and as if every group leader was the cruel school teacher, his anxiety disappeared.

Other typical examples are the woman who responds to every man she meets "as if" he were some individual man out of her past; the man who reacts to every person in authority "as if" he were some individual authority out of his past