Our first born, who has asked to be called Alice, started out as a dog lover. In fact, she took her first steps in pursuit of three frolicking pups. She fearlessly toddled to the panting dogs, giggling with delight when they swiped at her cheeks with their long pink tongues. We thought that was it; she'd be a dog lover for life. But around age four, she began to recoil when dogs jumped to greet her; suddenly she seemed to perceive their open mouths and high energy as threatening. By third grade her terror had deepened to the point where even a small dog trotting down the opposite side of the street could send her leaping into my arms with a shriek. She had developed a terror, a real phobia, that has persisted through most of sixth grade, though it has begun to diminish. I have some new thoughts about how to approach this old fear.
A phobia is a severe fear reaction that occurs in situations that aren't really dangerous. People develop phobias of many things: needles, heights, public speaking, flying, and small animals are all common phobias. Some people believe these irrational fears are the result of conditioning; for example, a highly traumatic experience with a dog could have conditioned Alice's fear of dogs, or she might have observed another person's extremely fearful response, with the same effect. But, as is often the case, there was no precipitating event that we are aware of; she just got scared.
Many people think the best way to counter a phobia is to decondition the patient, or train her to react more appropriately. This is achieved by very gradual exposure (sometimes called in vivo exposure) to the thing she fears, allowing her to experience the fear and stay with it, so she becomes desensitized to the horrible anxiety (and less likely to suddenly leap into a loved one's arms on the side walk).
Alice was partially deconditioned by two Welsh Corgis named Sachmo and Nelly, frequently tethered outside the girls' school. Kind and mellow, these two did not chase or slather, and rarely barked; they merely lifted their weary heads to be petted as the children filed past. After months of acute avoidance, Alice followed her little sister's lead—I'll call her Chloe; four years younger, she was a steadfast dog lover—and tentatively patted them; these daily safe encounters added up, and eventually Alice became quite fond of Sachmo and Nelly. But now, at almost twelve, she still gets flighty around canines. Some part of her still can't quite distinguish between a friendly animal and serious threat.
Almost-eight-year-old Chloe would have had her first puppy years ago if it hadn't been for landlords and her dad's and sister's allergies. She can't have a dog, but this week she finally received her first furry pet: a foster rabbit named Mister Bubbles. The addition of this timid little cream-colored Netherlands Dwarf, this four-pound weakling with his quick-beating heart and soft, quiet hop, has transformed our household.
Each of us reacts differently to his gentle presence in our home. Chloe is his official guardian: she changes his litter, refreshes his water, and feeds him a morning carrot chip to be sure his appetite is up. He climbs on her lap and follows her around the room, and she repeats longingly, "I love him so much," as if she just can't believe she has feelings this strong for him so soon. Late at night my husband Pat lies on the floor to watch TV, while Mister Bubbles roams companionably around the living room. I sneak down at the crack of dawn to commune with him while I drink my morning coffee. And when Alice returns from school, she climbs into his cage, quietly approaches, and very gently strokes his silky ears.
Watching her with the bunny, I've been thinking about Alice's dog phobia. I see an opportunity for something more like cognitive therapy (replacing anxious thoughts with more realistic ones). It begins with the fact that Alice has empathy for the bunny. Mister Bubbles is about as scared a little individual as ever there was. Next to him, Alice, always a small kid, is suddenly the big, threatening beast. He goes all fluttery when she touches him; now she is the dog. But she understands the bunny.
I think this empathy might allow her to see her fear of dog-animals in a new light. Mister Bubbles is not a lesser version of a dog (a small puppy, or a faraway dog) for deconditioning; he is the picture of her normal state. And now in a position of scaring him, she can see there is no reason for him to be afraid of her; she's nice; she's safe. So she experiences, on a gut level, the fact that there are trustworthy large beasts, and that if a bunny can just learn to identify them, if she doesn't generalize unduly, she will be safe.
This empathy for another soul is what allows us to walk down the street alongside people who may scare us—maybe they resemble someone who once hurt us—and understand that although they appear to be similar, they are not necessarily dangerous; that there are fine criteria upon which we may judge a potential threat; that making broad generalizations like "all dogs are scary" can even make us more vulnerable.
Alice aches to confront that bunny's fear with reason: learn that I am a nice person who will take care of you, she urges him (learn that I am a safe, friendly dog). Will this empathy with the bunny help her learn to differentiate between safe and dangerous dogs? Will it extinguish the last bits of dog-fear lodged in her soul? That remains to be seen. But I am willing to bet that it has moved her forward a notch. And I'll be interested to see how her progress in dog phobia deconditioning will be enhanced by Bunny Empathy.
