The (Only) 5 Fears We All Share

Fear, like all other emotions, is basically information . It offers us knowledge and understanding—if we choose to accept it.

And there are only five basic fears , out of which almost all of our other so-called fears are manufactured. These are:

1. Extinction —This is a more fundamental way to express it than just "fear of death ." Consider that panicky feeling you get when you look over the edge of a high building.
2. Mutilation —the fear of losing any part of our precious bodily structure; Anxiety about animals, such as bugs, spiders, snakes, and other creepy things
3. Loss of Autonomy —the fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, restricted, enveloped
4. Separation —the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness
5. Ego-death —the fear of the shattering of one's constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.

1. Extinction —the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist. This is a more fundamental way to express it than just "fear of death ." The idea of no longer being arouses a primary existential anxiety in all normal humans. Consider that panicky feeling you get when you look over the edge of a high building.
2. Mutilation —the fear of losing any part of our precious bodily structure; the thought of having our body's boundaries invaded, or of losing the integrity of any organ, body part, or natural function. Anxiety about animals, such as bugs, spiders, snakes, and other creepy things arises from fear of mutilation.
3. Loss of Autonomy —the fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, restricted, enveloped, overwhelmed, entrapped, imprisoned, smothered, or otherwise controlled by circumstances beyond our control. In physical form, it's commonly known as claustrophobia, but it also extends to our social interactions and relationships.
4. Separation —the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness; of becoming a non-person— not wanted, respected, or valued by anyone else. The "silent treatment," when imposed by a group, can have a devastating effect on its target.
5. Ego-death —the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the self ; the fear of the shattering or disintegration of one's constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.

Some other emotions we know by various popular names are just aliases for these primary fears. If you track them down to their most basic levels, the basic fears show through. Jealousy , for example, is an expression of the fear of separation, or devaluation: "She'll value him more than she values me." At its extreme, it can express the fear of ego-death: "I'll be a worthless person." Envy works the same way.

Some of our fears, of course, have basic survival value. Others, however, are learned reflexes that can be weakened or re-learned.

When we let go of our notion of fear as the welling up of evil forces within us—the Freudian motif—and begin to see fear and its companion emotions as information , we can think about them consciously.

And the more clearly and calmly we can articulate the origins of the fear, the less our fears will frighten us and control us.