In psychology, a counterphobic attitude is a response to anxiety that, instead of fleeing the source of fear in the manner of a phobia, actively seeks it out, in the hope of overcoming the original anxiousness.
[9] Such a counterphobic approach may indeed be socially celebrated[10] in a postmodern vision of sex as gymnastic performance or hygiene,[11] fuelled by what Ken Wilber described as "an exuberant and fearless shallowness".
[15] Ego psychology points out that through the ambiguities of language, the concrete meanings of words may break down the counterphobic attitude and return the child to a state of fear.
[16] Didier Anzieu saw Freud's theorisation of psychoanalysis as a counterphobic defence against anxiety through intellectualisation: permanently ruminating on the instinctive, emotional world that was the actual object of fear.
[19] He also considered that psychological trauma could break down counterphobic defences, with results that "may be very painful for the patient; they are, from a therapeutic point of view, favorable".