Driving phobia

Thinking and Doing

There seem two ways to act in the world, via thinking or doing.  In thinking we see problem solving, use of rules, its conscious, thought based, and focuses on one thing at a time, it uses propositional knowledge and logic. In doing we see an engagement with the whole

and  is seen with complex tasks like driving, playing tennis or giving therapy. It’s a knowing how to, its intuitive, instinctive and action happens via feel, via the body. When you drive your focus is light across the environment in front of you, the road, its conditions, the engine and its sound. As something changes in the environment, you then respond to this, not in a conscious problem solving way but rather to continue the act of driving.

Driving phobia

When people become anxious with driving, the difficulty occurs because in the face of the feeling out of controllness of anxiety they use thinking to help them, they look for the danger, the car in front, the kerb etc. They give commands to themselves, you’re driving too fast, too close etc. The thing is trying to perform a complex task with individual rational thoughts is impossible, its how you learn but not how you do. In short they try to control the danger via problem solving, possibly because this is how they originally learnt how to overcome driving difficulties when they were learning how to do it.  The art then of working with driving phobia is to help your client remember how to trust their instincts again and do rather than think.