You’re doing a little slight of hand by throwing all “avoiding pain” in one large bucket (and then deciding that you want to keep some of it), but then instead of analyzing “avoiding fear” as applied to one specific threat (and then deciding that it’s “irrational”). You could just as easily say “no, I don’t approve of feeling pain when I need to kick an important game winning goal. It’s high order vs low order”, or “I absolutely approve of keeping my fears, because they also protect me from real threats”.
I don’t find the distinction to be useful, except in modeling how other people relate to their own impulses. Even when people tell me that their fear is “irrational” and that they want it thrown out, I treat it more like the way you refer to the pain aversion case, and it works.
For example, my friend was telling me about her “irrational fear of heights” that she wanted gone, so I had her climb up a rock wall over concrete and had her try to hold the frame that there was zero risk and that the fear was entirely irrational while I kept pointing at all the failure modes and asking her to explain how she knew that wouldn’t happen. This forced her to take the fear seriously, and once she did she was able to integrate it into her decision making process more efficiently and therefore able to be less paralyzed by fear when rock climbing and without throwing out any of the valuable information that the fear has. Similarly, there are times when you can look at the pain and decide that it’s not necessary and watch it melt away into ticklish sensations or nothingness (and then kick the ball without wincing or anticipating badness).
In both cases, I’d look at it as a signal that there’s value unaccounted for in the decision you’re wanting to make, and once you properly account for it, all conflict and discomfort vanishes.
You’re doing a little slight of hand by throwing all “avoiding pain” in one large bucket (and then deciding that you want to keep some of it), but then instead of analyzing “avoiding fear” as applied to one specific threat (and then deciding that it’s “irrational”). You could just as easily say “no, I don’t approve of feeling pain when I need to kick an important game winning goal. It’s high order vs low order”, or “I absolutely approve of keeping my fears, because they also protect me from real threats”.
I don’t find the distinction to be useful, except in modeling how other people relate to their own impulses. Even when people tell me that their fear is “irrational” and that they want it thrown out, I treat it more like the way you refer to the pain aversion case, and it works.
For example, my friend was telling me about her “irrational fear of heights” that she wanted gone, so I had her climb up a rock wall over concrete and had her try to hold the frame that there was zero risk and that the fear was entirely irrational while I kept pointing at all the failure modes and asking her to explain how she knew that wouldn’t happen. This forced her to take the fear seriously, and once she did she was able to integrate it into her decision making process more efficiently and therefore able to be less paralyzed by fear when rock climbing and without throwing out any of the valuable information that the fear has. Similarly, there are times when you can look at the pain and decide that it’s not necessary and watch it melt away into ticklish sensations or nothingness (and then kick the ball without wincing or anticipating badness).
In both cases, I’d look at it as a signal that there’s value unaccounted for in the decision you’re wanting to make, and once you properly account for it, all conflict and discomfort vanishes.