Science fiction, despite its often fantastical, futuristic settings, is often about the present, or at least the present in which it was written. The alien invasion scares of the 1950s reflected the Cold War threat of Communist ‘reds under the bed’. The world-building of 60s and 70s sci-fi held a mirror up to the social revolutions in race, politics or gender taking place at the time. And the more modern works of authors such as William Gibson and others reflect our changing relationships to digital technology and environmental collapse. The trick to reading science fiction, or at least certain strains of it, is identifying the actual contemporary concerns the author was really exploring.
Anxiety, like sci-fi, is also most often about the future, at least at first glance. Except instead of out-of-control super-intelligent robots or warlike alien races, we come up against monsters of a different sort. When we are anxious, we often face more recognisable enemies, which are no less frightening for their familiarity. Perhaps it’s that interview next week. Or that difficult conversation we need to have with a loved one. Or maybe it’s that doctor’s appointment coming up. It might even be something a lot more nebulous, just a vague yet all pervading sense of dread, like a Death Star hanging in the sky.
However, the similarity to sci-fi doesn’t end there, and again the trick is to notice it. Whilst we may say we are anxious ‘about’ the dreaded event in the future, what is actually provoking our emotional response is very much our contemporary. It is what we are telling ourselves about the event here and now, and what we irrationally believe we must have in relation to it. And most likely it is some kind of certainty that we are demanding, a certainty we usually cannot have.
Use the (REBT) Force
To paraphrase Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, ‘People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they hold about them’. This idea of emotional responsibility is the foundation of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), which is the school of CBT we teach here at CCBT. It states that we are responsible for how we feel about things (largely), and this control is achieved through the beliefs we have about things. They can be irrational i.e., unrealistic, illogical and unhelpful, resulting in disturbance, or rational, resulting in a more helpful and accepting position in the world. The trick is identifying our irrational, unhealthy beliefs and challenging them, rather than letting them create the fictional world full of radioactive blobs ready to crush our wellbeing.
When we begin to feel anxious about things coming up in the future, it’s always useful to ask ourselves ‘what would have to change for me to not feel anxious’. And the answer is often ‘I would know what was going to happen’. I would know if the interview was going to be easy, or that I would get the job. I would know my loved one would not be cross with me. I would know the doctor had good news. So we are demanding certainty. A certainty we (usually) cannot have, as we cannot see the future. Our demands and anxieties are just as speculative as the works of Le Guin, Butler and Banks.
Once we understand this, we can begin to understand the story of our concerns more fully. We don’t have to take them at face value, and we become a more intelligent reader of our own narratives. If we can learn to accept the ‘monster’ of uncertainty, we can begin to understand and even empathise with it, and see it as something we may not particularly welcome, but also as something we can live with, if we try.
The future is coming, whether we like it or not. It’s what we decide to tell ourselves about it that matters right now. Mary Shelley would be proud!
Nick Jones
REBT/CBT therapist
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