How can you best respond to a person fearful of radiation? Psychologists know that attempts to confront fears directly may not be helpful. Since fears come from the subconscious mind, this means the basis of the fear is not in a person’s awareness. Thus, our conscious mind does not know why we are afraid. Our subconscious mind is programmed to ever be on the alert for any signals of danger. Sensory signals flow through our spinal cord to the midbrain where the information is screened by the thalamus and the amygdala. In particular the amygdala recognizes signals of danger and immediately mobilizes automatic responses for protection. Before our conscious mind is even aware of any danger, the amygdala has directed our body to react without the benefit of a slow rational analysis. If a snake is about to strike us, we do not want to take the time to process the degree of danger before deciding to jump back. The amygdala not only responds to explicit signals of danger, but also to implicit memories of danger . Since radiation does not give any sensory (explicit) warnings, our reactions to radiation have to come from memories of what we have always heard about radiation.

Since most of what people have heard about radiation is mythology, instinctive reactions against radiation do not seem to have any rational technical basis. Efforts to rationally discuss a person’s fears of radiation, when they are in their automatic response mode, will likely result in frustration for both parties. However, there are ways to explore the basis of fears when a person has moved beyond their immediate fear response. The question to uncover the underlying images of fearful consequences for specific circumstances is to ask, “What’s so bad about that?” This question should be posed very gently and may need to be repeated several times to peel away several layers to get down to the real underlying image that drives the fear . Underlying bases for fear may include dying, loss of control, loss of health, loss of family, loss of income, etc. Another tool for response to a fearful person is called “Active Listening.” With this approach we respond to the apparent feeling conveyed along with a brief statement of the content. Since technical people often have difficulty identifying the feeling part of a message, it might be helpful to note that all feelings can be captured by one of the following words, “Mad, Sad, Glad, and Afraid.” There are also five key responses that can be used “when you do not know what to say” which are not confrontive or defensive.