I haven’t recommended a book in a while, but a recent conversation with a client gave me the perfect reason to do so. The book is Basic Forms of Fear by Fritz Riemann. While many may have already read it, it was first published in 1961, I still want to highlight it because it remains one of the most valuable works in psychology and an excellent read for anyone on the path of self-knowledge.
Drawing on his extensive psychotherapeutic experience, Riemann offers a clear and insightful look at different personality types and their corresponding forms of fears. What makes the book especially compelling is how he presents psychological disorders not as anomalies, but as extreme expressions of normal human tendencies that exist in all of us (for more on this topic, see the article on mental health as a scale).
Here’s an example of how this gradation appears in the depressive personality type:
“The depressive personality structure also grades from people with depressive outbursts, who we still call healthy, through milder to severe and most severe depressive personalities; we can sketch this grading line as follows: contemplation, passive absorption – quiet introversion, – modesty, shyness – inhibitions in making demands and in imposing oneself, – comfort, receptive passivity – passive expectant behaviour (idle expectations of life), – hopelessness – depression – melancholy. Not infrequently at the end of this line are suicide, complete apathy and indifference, or escape into some addiction which, however, only temporarily strengthens the self and takes away the depression.”*
According to Fritz Riemann, the basic fear characteristic of the depressive personality type is the fear of being oneself – a fear he links to the individuation impulse described in Jungian analysis. Much like the Earth revolves around the Sun, the depressive personality tends to orbit around things they perceive as more important than themselves. They become satellites to the people they love, inevitably falling into patterns of dependence. Other expressions of this same underlying fear include the fear of loss, separation, abandonment, loneliness, and not belonging.
The complete opposite of the depressive personality type is the schizoid type, which reflects another movement of the Earth – its rotation on its own axis. In this case, the rotation is centered around the self, and thus, the core fear of the schizoid personality is the fear of surrender, dependence, and emotional intimacy. These two types – depressive and schizoid – represent opposing poles of a fundamental psychological antinomy: self-surrender versus self-preservation. Each antinomy expresses what Fritz Riemann calls a “paradoxical super-demand that life itself places upon us” – the task of reconciling two entirely opposite tendencies and the fears they generate. In this case, it is the fear of losing oneself versus the fear of becoming oneself.
There is another pair of fears that forms a second antinomy and corresponds to two other personality types. These are the fear of change – the anxiety provoked by the irrepressible transience of life – and its counterpart, the fear of stagnation – the dread of inescapable repetition and necessity. When the fear of change dominates, the personality tends toward compulsive behavior; when the fear of stagnation prevails, we see the characteristics of the hysterical type. These fears exist, in varying degrees, within every person. Only in their extreme forms do they lead to psychological dysfunction and pathology.
Thus, the four main forms of fear presented in Riemann’s book are:
-
The fear of self-giving, experienced as loss of self and dependence.
-
The fear of becoming oneself, experienced as vulnerability and isolation.
-
The fear of change, experienced as transience and uncertainty.
-
The fear of necessity, experienced as finality and lack of freedom.
And one more important thing from this book:
“To believe that we can live our lives without fear remains one of our greatest illusions. Fear is part of our existence – a reflection of our dependence and the awareness of our mortality. All we can do is try to build counter-forces: courage, trust, knowledge, strength, hope, humility, faith, and love. These are what help us accept fear, face it, and overcome it – again and again. We should be cautious of any method that promises complete freedom from fear; such promises do not align with the reality of human existence and only create false expectations.” Fritz Riemann*
I agree. If we want to be ever more true to ourselves and dare to claim our otherness – walking untrodden paths – fear will always be present. It is the natural response to encountering the new and the unknown. From a mental health perspective, the right approach to fear is not to avoid it, but quite the opposite: to look it in the eye and move through it. Overcoming fear doesn’t mean it disappears completely—because with every new step, another unknown awaits. But each time we face it, fear becomes fuel for our growth.
“Fear arises whenever we find ourselves in situations we are not yet able to handle. Every stage of development, every step in our maturation, is accompanied by fear – because it leads us into something new, previously unknown and unmastered, into inner or outer experiences that we have not yet encountered or tested ourselves in. Anything unfamiliar, anything we must do or experience for the first time, comes with not only the allure of novelty, the thrill of adventure, and the joy of risk, but also fear. And since life constantly propels us toward new, uncharted territory, fear becomes a constant companion. It tends to appear most strongly at pivotal moments of personal growth – when we must leave behind familiar patterns, take on new responsibilities, or brace ourselves for significant change. That’s why development, growth, and maturation are inseparable from the process of facing and overcoming fear. Each life stage brings its own unique challenges, and with them, the fears that must be acknowledged and navigated in order to truly grow. (ibid).
Happy reading!
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
* All quotes marked with an asterisk* are direct translations from Bulgarian
