Fear of Decision-Making

27 October 2021

In a course I’m taking this semester, on career development, one of the underlying premises is that people will enter therapy believing they have a troublesome career issue to discuss.  After a few sessions, that troublesome issue is found to relate to something bigger, older, and entirely personal.  What that says is that there is a deeper life issue manifesting as a career issue.

Some career counsellors conduct clients through a series of aptitude and interest tests in a well-meaning attempt to help them focus on where their strengths and passions may be better placed and utilized.  Krumboltz (1993, 2013) calls b.s. on this with the foundational premise that career and personal counselling are inextricably intertwined.  From the theories I’m reading, the experience I’ve lived, and the narratives I’ve heard, I agree.

In fact, Krumboltz offers up something that I’ve never heard discussed—anywhere, but more pointedly, in the addiction community.  He claims that the for-the-rest-of-your-life weight of choosing the career results in zeteophobia, fear of career exploration, (Krumboltz, 1993).

The first half of the word is Greek in origin, well used in the New Testament, and pronounced zeh-TAY-o.  Dr. Google tells me this Greek verb can be understood as to challenge, to question, to seek honestly, or to dispute. Knowing that phobia is a fear of, zeteophobia is a fear of challenging, questioning, honestly seeking, or disputing.  And all of this is to be read in relation to seeking one’s vocation. 

If you take a minute to think about the rhythm of our society, that makes sense.  We send our children (mostly) to public schools with largely academic subject matter, (sometimes) letting them pursue their own interests during breaks and summers.  Yet with the dominance of social media, many young people can no longer act without almost immediate feedback on their social networks.  In my estimation, this sense of always being watched and judged has increased the anxiety in young people so significantly that they appear afraid to make eye-contact on a sidewalk, let alone offer a cheerful “Good morning!”  Imagine their anxiety when their parents, friends, and high school guidance counsellors all get on the pick-your-university bandwagon.  Their first response is probably I have no idea what I’m doing so how am I supposed to know where I’m going?!  Fair question.

Like most of us, through some combination of parental, scholastic, and peer pressure, they decide.  Now think about how that decision was made at age 17, and the time and study devoted to it.  The shocking fact, that the astute reader will have noted, is that Krumboltz (1993) identified zeteophobia in the early 1990s, before social media had even begun its stranglehold on our ways of being.  What was scary for me, is deadly for my children. 

So, what about those in recovery?

People recovering from addictive behaviours resurface toward full consciousness after years of trying to use drugs to cope with pain (social, psychic, physical…).  As regular readers may recall, Maté (2018) describes the three requirements of addiction as 1) a susceptible organism (you or me), 2) a drug or behaviour with addictive power, and 3) stress.  When a person begins recovery, whether through harm reduction, cold turkey, or medical detoxification, two of those causes remain: stress and the susceptible organism.  Only the addictive substance/behaviour is removed.

And that was the same addictive substance/behaviour that was relied on, sometimes for decades, to cope with stress and pain.  So what happens to the stress load and the susceptible organism?  Within most susceptible organisms, or people leaving addiction, massive self-doubt, shame, and incessant negative self-talk occupy their minds.  That self-talk tells them they cannot stick with this, need to return to addictive using...in other words, the stress load goes off the charts.  These are some of the reasons sobriety and recovery are so difficult.

Living in a society that often appears driven by economic concerns, the spirit of our time kind of indicates to anyone who has had a setback, that the sooner you get back on the hamster wheel, the better for all of us.  (This is a premise that deserves radical analysis but on another day.)  If you have just left addiction, you feel that pressure from media, friends, and relatives.  Yet, you are essentially the same person you were when you started using addictively.  So, the stress is higher, and the organism is more susceptible, because she perceives the world around her saying, “Come on, you’ve been laying about for two decades, get with the program.” 

And then we hit that stressed-out, wildly susceptible organism—who has no idea who she really is—with the So-waddaya-gonna-do-with-the-rest-of-your-life? question.  Look out folks, zeteophobia is heading our way.  And how could it be otherwise?  When presented in this light, we do not look quite as sensitive and intelligent about self-management as I wish we were.  But all is not lost.  Krumboltz (2013) also provided an interesting suggestion for finding your way through the maze of self versus world: happenstance.

He is not the first writer I’ve read on this subject.  The first was the fortuitously named Wiseman (2004) who cited both Krumboltz and Bandura on his way to elucidating four “…principles that will change your luck — and your life.”  The principle shared by Krumboltz and Wiseman is maximizing chance opportunities. 

And there is something beautifully integrative about what these guys are saying.  In short, if we put ourselves into unfamiliar places and situations, we are more likely to see life differently and see opportunity differently.  By seeing life and opportunities from a new perspective, you are more likely to engage with others.  Engaging others sews you back into the fabric of the world, but it does so while offering the opposite of addiction: re/connection.

Dan Chalykoff is working toward an M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology and accreditation in Professional Addiction Studies.  He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understandings of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.

References

Google search “zeteo meaning” (19.x.21). https://www.google.com/search?q=zeteo+meaning&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA879CA879&oq=meaning%2C+zeteo&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i22i30l2.10055j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Krumboltz, J.D., Foley, P.F., & Cotter, E.W. (2013). Applying the Happenstance Theory to Involuntary Career Transitions.  The Career Development Quarterly.

Krumboltz, J. (1993). Integrating Career and Personal Counselling.  The Career Development Quarterly.

Maté, G. (2018). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.  Vintage Canada.

Wiseman, R. (2004). The Luck Factor.  Arrow Books.