causes internal tension and psychological damage. He hypothesized a
generalized adaptation syndromein which the body mobilizes to deal with
stress. At first, physiological resistance holds the stressors at bay, but eventu-
ally the system becomes exhausted, opening the door for mental and physi-
cal disease. Selye thought that the modern world was just too stressful for
healthy living. This simple idea spread into the popular consciousness like
wildfire. Stress was a hidden killer, and there was just too much of it. Selye
also said that too little stress was just as bad as too much, but that part was
largely ignored in the rush to blame modern life for the ills of modern life.
Some of the earliest research on the effects of stress involved assigning
common environmental stressors, such as Death of a spouseor Christmas,
a numerical value. Then the numbers in a person’s life were added up,
and the higher the total, the greater the likelihood that person would get
sick within the year. You have undoubtedly seen the checklist in a magazine
or Sunday supplement. How high was your score? Danger zone, right? So
why aren’t you in the hospital?
For one thing, the test is rather crude, and many people come out as
false positives.
For another, later studies showed that there were a number of people
who carried huge stress loads and still managed quite well. These stress-
hardy individuals seem to share three characteristics: (1) They believe that
what they do affects what happens to them, (2) they’re connected and
committed to something larger than themselves, and (3) they go out of
their way to take on challenges and to learn new things. If you want a def-
inition of psychological health, this is the best one I know. As you’ve seen
in the previous chapters, the overall purpose of psychotherapy is to foster
these very attitudes and behaviors.
Stress is most dangerous to people who think stress is dangerous and
try to avoid it. One of the reasons the stress checklist is so popular, despite
its relative inaccuracy, is that it offers proof—to those who seek it—that
an external force is causing their pain, and suggests by implication that to
get better you ought to get rid of stress. These views fly in the face of every-
thing we know about fear disorders, but they’re seductive nonetheless.
Remember Randy from the last chapter, who became anxious after
a disciplinary action at work and was misdiagnosed as having PTSD?
When I saw him, almost a year after he went out on disability, he was still
worked up about the stresses of his job.
128 ❧Explosions into Fear