How Physiological Control Techniques Work to Reduce Stress, Anxiety, Fear, and Anger

An article based on the work in Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to Threat has been submitted to various police journals in Australia, UK, and US for publication.

This is the conclusion to that article:

Understanding how techniques like controlled breathing and muscle relaxation work—via feedback loops that link physiology, cognition, and emotion—can help officers apply them with greater confidence and flexibility in the field. This knowledge transforms the technique from a rote drill into a tactical skill, one that can be used deliberately to maintain composure and performance in high-stress situations.

This is the About the Author section:

John Coles is the author of Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat and The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques, both currently under submission for publication. He has written 17 nationally published articles based on the content of those books. John also authored Jan de Jong: The Man, His School and His Jiu Jitsu System, and contributed to Going Global: A Primer for Australian Managers and Enterprises Wishing to Do Business Internationally. His writing on leadership has appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and leading professional blogs.

These techniques should be taught in all activities associated with preparing a person to engage in a violent encounter, sporting events, examinations of any sort, etc. An understanding of how they work leverages the performance of the techniques significantly.

Contact me for further information.

Fear and Fight - Synopsis

 I'm about to finish Fear and Fight and submit it to agents for publication. This is my first attempt at a synopsis that will accompany the submission:

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat is a ground-breaking, interdisciplinary exploration of how humans and other animals respond to danger. Bridging evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, trauma studies, and lived experience, this book challenges conventional views of fear and trauma—particularly those entrenched in diagnostic frameworks like the DSM.

Drawing on a rich mix of personal insight, empirical research, clinical theory, and cultural analysis, the book traces the development of our instinctive survival responses—such as freezing, fleeing, and fighting—and examines how these are shaped, amplified, or overridden by learning, context, and socialisation. From the role of the amygdala in fast fear reactions to the deliberate cultivation of courage and hope in warfare, Fear and Fight offers a clear, accessible, and emotionally resonant narrative of what happens to mind and body under threat.

The book explains why fear sometimes emerges after the danger has passed, and why some people feel nothing in the moment of trauma—drawing on military training, domestic violence, and civilian experiences to explore how both natural and learned responses influence psychological outcomes. It challenges gendered assumptions about submission, highlights the strategic use of emotion in military contexts, and critiques the evolution of PTSD diagnosis, including the removal of DSM-IV’s Criterion A2.

Structured across multiple parts—including foundational chapters on fear responses, emotion and cognition, diagnostic categories, and applied theories in war, self-defence, and survival—the book culminates in a compelling argument: that understanding threat responses requires both biological insight and cultural literacy. Whether dissecting cinematic depictions of trauma, military stress training protocols, or real-world encounters with violence, Fear and Fight equips readers with a new lens through which to understand themselves and others.

Ultimately, this book is not only about what we fear—but how we survive.

What do you think?

Introduction: Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

As I wrote in my previous post, I have completed I have completed the first complete draft of the book that I've been researching and writing for the past ten years: Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat.

I shared the Preface to Fear and Fight in the previous post. In this post, I share the introduction:

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The same survival mechanisms that kept our forefathers alive can help keep us alive as well! However, those survival mechanisms that can help us can also work against us if we don’t understand and anticipate their presence.

—U.S. Army Field Manual 3-5.70: Survival

 Bruce Siddle is an internationally recognised authority on use-of-force training and the effects of ‘survival stress’ on combat performance. In Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge, Siddle (1995) refers to the well-known ‘fight-or-flight response’ as the ‘survival stress response’ (SSR), describing it as an automatic physiological reaction that prepares the body to either fight or flee when exposed to a threat. This reaction enhances strength, speed, endurance, and pain tolerance—traits that evolved to increase an individual’s chances of survival in life-threatening situations.

 Siddle (2005) explains that the SSR is primarily activated under two conditions: when an individual perceives an imminent deadly force threat and when there is minimal time to respond to that threat. He suggests that a person walking towards us with a knife from a distance of 500 yards (457 metres) is unlikely to activate our SSR, whereas being surprised by the same threat at a distance of 10 feet (3 metres) will almost certainly trigger it.

 I have faced a knife-wielding assailant while unarmed on two separate occasions, both of which involved the element of surprise and occurred at distances of less than 10 feet (3 metres). Yet, on both occasions, I did not experience a SSR reaction. The SSR was selected for in nature because it provided a survival advantage when one’s life was threatened. Where was my SSR when my life was threatened by a knife-wielding assailant in two situations that involved both a distance of less than 10 feet (3 metres) and the element of surprise?

 Siddle (2005) suggests that while the SSR was advantageous in our evolutionary past, it can interfere with modern survival skills such as close-quarter combat, firearms use, or evasive driving. He (Siddle 1995) refers to this as a ‘combat paradox’: the same response that once ensured our survival can now undermine it in specific combat scenarios. This raises an intriguing question: were my survival prospects if fact enhanced because I didn’t experience a SSR in these critical moments? Either way, the question remains—why didn’t I experience a SSR which is evolutionarily designed to promote an individual’s survival when my survival was directly threatened on two separate occasions? This book is the product of my search for answers to those questions.

 ‘Fight Activities’

The original intended audience for this book included individuals involved or interested in martial arts, self-defence, combat sports, security (such as security officers, bodyguards, and crowd controllers), law enforcement, and the military. But how can these diverse pursuits be referred to collectively?

 What they all share is a core focus: they train individuals to fight—for different purposes, certainly, but the ability to fight remains central. For this reason, this book refers to them collectively as ‘Fight Activities.’

 ‘Fight Activities’

The initial intended audience of this book was those engaged or interested in martial arts, self-defence, combat sports, security (security officer, security bodyguard, crowd controller), law enforcement, and the military. How can those activities be referred to collectively? To answer that question, we first need to ask what those activities have in common. Those activities teach trainees to fight, to fight for a variety of reasons but to fight nonetheless. For that reason, those activities will be referred to collectively in this book as ‘Fight Activities.’

 Fear and Fight

Our principal natural response to a threat is the emotion of fear—and the action tendency of fear is flight. Fight is not an action tendency of fear, despite what many suggest when referring to fight-or-flight and stress response concepts to explain our natural reaction to threats. Fight Activities teach people how to fight—for a variety of reasons, but to fight nonetheless. They provide ways and means to overcome fear in order to fight. These methods, combined with the learned fight behaviours they instil, form our learned response to a threat.

 This book explores both our natural response—driven by fear—and our learned response, focusing on the ways Fight Activities help us manage fear in order to fight. That’s why this book is titled: Fear and Fight.

 A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

The subtitle of this book reflects a desire to deepen our understanding of our natural and learned responses to threats. The process that produced this understanding is explained by the work of Gary Klein in Seeing What Others Don’t (2013), where he discusses how insights can lead to more comprehensive and useful perspectives.

 Klein defines insight as an accurate and profound understanding, suggesting that it brings forth a new understanding that did not previously exist. This new understanding is better because it is more accurate, comprehensive, and useful than prior knowledge. Throughout this book, I aim to share insights that contribute to a new and better understanding of our natural and learned responses to threats.

 One of Klein’s paths to insight is curiosity, captured in the simple yet powerful question: ‘What’s going on here?’ This question serves as a catalyst for exploration, driving individuals to seek answers. For me, this journey began with my own ‘What’s going on here?’ moment—sparked by my lack of a fight-or-flight response during two life-threatening situations. That initial question led to answers, which in turn sparked more questions and deeper insights, ultimately shaping my understanding of how we respond to threats.

 Klein emphasises that insights transform our understanding and, in many ways, change who we are. They can alter our understanding by shifting the central beliefs in the story we use to make sense of events. This ‘new understanding can give us new ideas about the kinds of actions we can take; it can redirect our attention, changing what we see; it can alter the emotions we feel; and it can affect what we desire’ (Klein 2013, p. 148). This book aspires to facilitate such transformations for readers, encouraging a shift in how they understand, think, feel, and act in relation to our responses to threats.

 A Personal Perspective: Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attacks

What makes this exploration particularly unique is my diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) with panic attacks, which offers me a distinctive insight into both our natural and learned responses to perceived threats. Living with GAD means that my brain often interprets harmless situations as threatening, triggering responses as though the danger were real. This allows me to experience firsthand the instinctive responses to perceived threats, with anxiety and fear being the principal reaction. At the same time, the treatment for GAD involves learning to manage these responses, closely mirroring the way military, law enforcement, and self-defence practitioners are trained to regulate fear in high-stress situations. This parallel between therapeutic interventions and combat training demonstrates how learned behaviours can modify our instinctive reactions. Through this personal lens, I have studied our responses from the inside out, gaining an intimate understanding of how we handle both real and imagined threats. My experience informs every chapter of this book, offering a unique perspective on the interplay between natural and learned responses to a threat.

 Structure of the Book

Many people refer to the fight-or-flight concept to explain our natural response to a threat. In Chapter Two, we will explore how this widely accepted concept is based on a limited and flawed understanding of human survival responses. However, an accurate understanding of fight-or-flight still forms the basis for a more comprehensive view of both our natural and learned responses to threats.

 Chapter Three shifts focus to stress, another widely cited concept for explaining our natural response to danger. Since stress theory is rooted in the fight-or-flight concept, it shares the same limitations and flaws. Furthermore, because stress theory emerged from medical and biological research emphasising its negative effects on health, it has skewed researchers’ understanding of how stress plays a role in our survival responses.

 As I sought an answer to why I did not experience a stress response when confronted by a knife-wielding assailant on two separate occasions, I discovered that stress can be understood as a process involving physiological, emotional, and behavioural components. While this did not explain my reaction, it pointed me toward a deeper exploration of the emotional aspect, which proved instrumental in developing a new and better understanding of threat responses.

 Chapter Four examines emotion. Emotion, for theorists, is more than just a feeling. It’s a multi-component response to significant threats and opportunities, evolved to give an individual a survival advantage. In this chapter, an emotion process model is presented that offers a more accurate, comprehensive, and useful way to understand threat responses. This model will be applied throughout the rest of the book to investigate our natural and learned responses to a threat.

 Fear and its close cousin, anxiety, are the focus of Chapter Five, followed by a critical analysis in Chapter Six: if fighting is instinctively tied to fear, why do Fight Activities teach methods for overcoming fear in order to fight?

 The chapters in Part II dissect the individual components of the emotion/survival process, initially focusing on fear, and explore how interventions by Fight Activities help individuals overcome fear to fight. Many of these interventions rely on reason to suppress the emotional response of fear. Chapter 14 delves into the separation of ‘passion and reason’ and its implications for self-defence and combat training.

 Part IV applies the theory developed in earlier chapters to real-world contexts, including military strategy and self-defence. These chapters serve as case studies, showcasing how understanding fear and learned behaviours can inform and improve practical applications in survival and combat settings.

 Finally, Part V transitions to the post-phase of violent encounters, focusing on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is explored in depth, applying the insights from this book to better understand the condition and its treatment, along with related disorders such as GAD. My own experience with GAD has provided a firsthand perspective on these mechanisms. In fact, it demonstrates that PTSD and GAD share many similarities, both as evolved survival mechanisms and in terms of their treatment.

 A Broader Audience

While this book began as an exploration for those involved in Fight Activities—martial artists, self-defence practitioners, law enforcement, and military personnel—it has grown to encompass a wider audience. The principles discussed have far-reaching applications, touching on how we all navigate fear, anxiety, and survival in both extreme and everyday situations. Whether confronting life’s unexpected challenges or simply standing up to talk in a meeting, this book offers valuable insights into mastering fear and emerging stronger. Ultimately, Fear and Fight is for anyone who faces anxiety and/or fear—whether in combat or in daily life—and seeks to gain a deeper understanding of both the natural and learned responses that guide us through these experiences.

Expanding Horizons: The Boundless Possibilities of Understanding Threat Responses

When I began exploring our natural and learned responses to threats, I had no idea just how far-reaching this journey would be. What started as an investigation into fight-or-flight and stress training for survival has grown into something much larger—a foundation that connects to multiple fields of study and areas of practical application.

As I near the completion of my book, Fear and Fight: Understanding Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat, I’m starting to see the extraordinary possibilities that extend from this work. It’s not just about understanding fear or teaching self-defence; it’s about addressing core questions that affect how we live, learn, train, heal, and adapt in the face of adversity.

The Key Premise: Natural and Learned Responses to Threats

At its core, my book explores the ways in which humans respond to threats, both instinctively and through learned behaviours. It delves into the evolutionary roots of survival mechanisms and how these responses can be shaped, trained, and even transformed.

The insights I’ve developed are rooted in diverse disciplines, including psychology, physiology, military and law enforcement training, neuroscience, and self-defence. Whether it’s understanding the appraisal process during a threat or using stress training to regulate emotions, these ideas are designed to bridge the gap between theory and real-world application.

The Ripple Effect: Applications Beyond the Book

As I’ve worked through the chapters, I’ve realised that this understanding of threat responses is just the beginning. The possibilities for applying these insights are endless:

1. Anxiety Disorders and Mental Health

The connections between threat appraisal, emotional regulation, and stress training offer a new lens for understanding and treating anxiety disorders. This includes conditions like generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), panic attacks, and PTSD.

2. Women’s Self-Defence

By addressing the myths surrounding women’s ability to fight and defend themselves, this work provides a framework for self-defence training that goes beyond the physical. It emphasises the mental and emotional aspects of fighting, countering harmful stereotypes and empowering individuals.

3. Tactical Decision-Making

Insights from military and law enforcement stress training highlight the importance of preparing for high-stakes situations. This could revolutionise not only martial arts but also other fields requiring split-second decisions under pressure.

4. Martial Arts Pedagogy

Many traditional martial arts systems focus primarily on physical techniques. By integrating mental and emotional training, we could create a more holistic approach to teaching and learning combat skills.

5. Neuroscience and the Survival Process

Exploring the neurological basis of fear, courage, and resilience opens doors to understanding the brain’s role in threat responses. This could inform both training techniques and therapeutic interventions.

6. Fear and Resilience in Children

How do children learn to face fear and build resilience? This question connects to education, parenting, and youth development, offering valuable insights into nurturing emotional strength from a young age.

7. PTSD Treatment and Evolutionary Insights

The evolutionary perspective on PTSD suggests that our responses to trauma are not simply maladaptive but rooted in survival mechanisms. This understanding could lead to innovative treatment approaches that align with our biological and psychological realities.

8. Societal Responses to Perceived Threats

On a larger scale, understanding how individuals and groups respond to threats—both real and perceived—has implications for public policy, social psychology, and community resilience.

Beyond the Present: Future Projects and Collaborations

These possibilities inspire me to think beyond my current book. Could I write a follow-up focusing solely on anxiety disorders? Or create a manual for martial arts instructors to integrate stress training into their teaching? What about exploring fear and resilience in children or addressing societal fear responses in an increasingly complex world?

The work I’ve done so far has shown me that the understanding of threat responses isn’t just a niche topic; it’s a universal one. It touches on how we face challenges, how we grow, and how we connect with others.

An Invitation to Join the Conversation

As I reflect on these possibilities, I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Do you see applications of this work in your own field or life? Are there areas I haven’t considered?

This is just the beginning of a much larger conversation. Let’s explore it together.

Combat-Related PTSD

I've been working on the chapter on PTSD in my Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat. Fascinating subject. In this post I will share some information about combat-related PTSD.

The first thing that needs to be understood about PTSD is that PTSD is a generic term and includes different types of PTSD. Different types of PTSD means different symptoms and different treatment.

Evolution and Posttraumatic Stress: Disorders of Vigilance and Defence by Chris Cantor is the first book to examine PTSD from an evolutionary perspective. Cantor argues that a confounding issue in the study of trauma is the blurring of boundaries between fear and loss-related phenomena. He suggests that the study of responses to extreme fear involves PTSD and that of loss involves depression: ‘PTSD might be more useful if it was restricted to the emotion fear; loss is adequately catered for by depression’

Cantor is comparing apples with oranges here. Fear is an emotion, loss is not. Appraisal theory has a stress appraisal being classified as either harm/loss, threat, or challenge. It is better to speak of threat-related and loss-related PTSD.

Cantor states that fear is the key emotion in (threat-related) PTSD. However, empirical evidence suggests that there is a unique relationship among PTSD, anger, and aggression, particularly in veterans. Why? Because warfighters are trained to cope with threats with anger and aggression. While a benign stimulus in PTSD is erroneously appraised as threat, the trained response of a warfighter/veteran to a threat is anger and aggression. That trained response is reinforced in combat when it is successfully employed to survive life-threats. (See Chemtob et al (1997) 'Anger regulation deficits in combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder' Journal of Traumatic Stress.)

Compare that to rape-related PTSD. In those cases, fear is the key emotion and the response is our natural or instinctive response to a threat rather than a learned/trained one.

There are many issues that arise from this conception of PTSD. For instance, Possis et al (2014) investigated driving difficulties among military veterans and the potential pathways that underlie risky driving behaviour. The risky driving behaviour pertains to driving behaviour in the relatively benign civilian environment upon return from deployment. Possis et al start off by explaining that military personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan often develop mental health difficulties (e.g., PTSD), which may manifest as problematic driving behaviour: ‘Veterans may be more likely to engage in risky driving and to subsequently be involved in motor vehicle accidents and fatalities’ (2014, 633). Possis et al propose three mechanisms underlying driving difficulties in the population group under investigation: influence of fear, influence of anger and aggression, and influence of thrill seeking and sensation seeking.

When considering the influence of fear on driving difficulties among military veterans, Possis et al explain that,

Certain military experiences may make veterans more prone to fear-related driving difficulties. Military training itself may have an influence; the importance of ‘tactical awareness’ or being aware and able to react to danger immediately at all times is emphasised. Constantly being on guard and aware of potential threats might make an individual more apprehensive and anxious. In discussing his anxiety in dense traffic, the patient of one author (E.P.) commented that ‘my [military] training taught me it’s not safe to be boxed in. … individuals with significant driving anxiety are likely to make catastrophic predictions about driving situations (e.g., ‘trash on the side of the road could be an IED’) and are likely to attend to threat-related cues to the exclusion of other information. Additionally, these individuals are likely to engage in avoidance behaviour, such as steering clear of traffic or underpasses.’ (2014, 634-635)

The question here is, are the driving difficulties fear-related in combat-related PTSD or is it simply their training. The appraisal is in error, but does it produce a fear response? And what of a veterans training? They are trained to deal with fear and anxiety, e.g., stress exposure training (chapter 18 in Fear and Fight). Interestingly, a lot of therapy for PTSD is the same training provided to warfighters to better prepare them for operational deployment. Warfighters should already have a lot of the tools necessary to treat threat-related PTSD given they are the same tools they are taught to overcome fear and anxiety in order to fight.

The PTSD Story Part 2: WWI leading to Medical 203

PTSD was introduced as a diagnosis in the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published in 1980, however, the PTSD story starts with World War I and the U.S. Army's Medical 203.

When writing about the ‘darker side’ of military mental healthcare, Russell, Schaubel, and Figley (2018) explain how all major European armies witnessed unprecedented, some would say epidemic, numbers of psychiatric casualties during WWI. Hundreds of thousands of military officers and enlisted members were being discharged, sent home, and given disability pensions for afflictions like shell shock and traumatic neuroses. European governments and military departments, they explain, became increasingly alarmed by this epidemic of war psychiatric casualties that existentially endangered the military’s capacity to fight and win wars, as well as producing skyrocketing disability pension costs threatening to bankrupt economies. In response, military leaders were forced to solicit the services of mental health professionals whose discipline was still in its infancy at that time.

What developed from the mental health professionals involvement came to be known as ‘frontline psychiatry’ where psychiatric casualties are treated as close to combat areas as possible with the firm expectation that the troops will return quickly to duty. Russell, Schaubel, and Figley explain that a comprehensive review of the military’s frontline psychiatry policies demonstrates its unquestioning effectiveness in preventing psychiatric evacuations. Note the focus on psychiatric ‘evacuations.’ The focus of the program is on preventing psychiatric evacuations not long-term mental health, which is reflected in the motto of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, ‘conserve the fighting strength’ (Jones and Wessely 2003), or as Russell, Schaubel, and Figley put it, to ‘preserve the fighting force.’

This is my own cynical evaluation of this process (which is part of the abovementioned darker side of military mental healthcare). How could frontline psychiatry fail? A soldier suffering combat stress reactions is taken off the frontline thus removing the stressor. They are kept close enough to the front to be reminded of their comrades fighting at the front, aka receiving support from their comrades, and how they are letting them down. The soldier returns to combat where their condition was indeed transient and they once again engage in combat in an effective manner. No psychiatric casualty going home. The same soldiers' fighting abilities may be impaired because of a mental disorder associated with the stress of combat and they are wounded or killed in action. WIA or KIA, no psychiatric casualty going home. They may desert because of their mental condition caused by the stress of combat, in which case they are a deserter and not a psychiatric casualty going home. They may abuse alcohol and/or drugs as a means of coping with the symptoms of their mental condition brought on by the stress of combat, in which case they are disciplined and possibly dishonourably discharged for behavioural problems. No psychiatric casualty going home. How could frontline psychiatry fail? It is genius, not unlike Catch-22.

In order to avoid a repeat of the same psychiatric attrition and subsequent disability pension costs of WWI, the Second World War saw the large-scale involvement of American psychiatrists in the selection, processing, assessment, and treatment of American soldiers. They were, however, hampered in their efforts because they were utilising a system of classification that was developed primarily for the needs of public mental health hospitals (Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane). ‘Psychiatric nomenclature which was barely adequate for civilian psychiatry was totally inadequate for military psychiatry’ (Brill 1966, 229), so the U.S. Army went about developing their own classification system. That classification system was published in War Department Technical Bulletin, Medical 203 issued on 19 October 1945 and came to be known simply as Medical 203 (Med 203). 

Med 203 included a 'combat exhaustion' diagnosis which we will explore in the next post.

This exploration will also demonstrate how the mental health discipline/professionals/practice came to gain credibility and how it is based in war time practices.

An easy way to overvome fear in order to fight :)

I am currently working on the conclusion to Fear and Fight: Understanding Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat. An interesting question has arisen.

Colonel John M. House explains that soldiers must overcome their fear of death and injury in order to act and survive on the battlefield (Why War? Why an Army?). The way I describe it in my book (this week) is that fear impinges upon a person's readiness and ability to engage in and succeed in a fight. The same is true of all violent encounters.

I explain in the book that ironically, I had my first panic attack and was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and panic disorder while researching and writing that book on the mechanism responsible for those disorders. While distressing and debilitating, this condition has enabled me to study our inherited survival mechanism from the inside out, which in turn enabled me to study our learned responses to a threat because they are often designed to thwart nature's survival efforts.

I have recently been prescribed sertraline. Sertraline is used to treat depression, panic attacks, OCD, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. It may decrease fear, anxiety, unwanted thoughts, and the number of panic attacks. In 2016, it was the most prescribed psychiatric medication in the United States with over 37 million prescriptions.

Soldiers must overcome their fear (and anxiety) of death and injury in order to act and survive on the battlefield. Fear and anxiety impinges upon a person's readiness and ability to engage in and succeed in a fight. If sertraline reduces or eliminates anxiety, fear, and panic, and is safe, why aren't soldiers and others such as front-line police officers given sertraline in order to counter fear and anxiety? Its legal, it just needs a prescription which I am sure is not an issue for the government. It'd be far easier and a lot cheaper than training such as stress exposure training that is designed to less negative reactions (anxiety and fear) under high stress conditions (combat) that impinge upon performance (fighting).

Women enroll in women's self-defence classes in order to reduce their anxiety and fear of being attacked. A big part of their training is overcoming fear in order to fight. Why not provide sertraline to manage that issue? No need to be threatened in training in order to learn to deal with fear.

Martial arts are supposed to teach ways to overcome or counter fear in order to fight. Sertraline would appear to take care of that problem.

A book on the short history of emotion suggests that these magic pills gets rid of Stoic and Buddhist teachings and discipline in terms of managing emotions, and of course you have to question the usefulness of psychotherapy given this magic pill deals with these issues. :)

It is an intriguing question. :) ... more so for me because if soldiers are not provided with sertraline given their line of work, why am I being prescribed sertraline to deal with my anxiety and panic disorders?

Holistic Martial Arts

I'm working on a chapter on stress training which is being increasingly used by the military and law enforcement to better prepare their personnel for operational deployment.

The first phase of stress exposure training and stress inoculation training is information provision which includes indoctrination where the usefulness of stress training is demonstrated to the trainee.

This can be achieved by explaining the relationship between stress training and learning to fight.

McCaughey explains that learning to fight involves the coordination of thinking, feeling, and acting. She also explain how most self-defence empahsise the physical but not the emotional and thinking. Various papers on stress training for the military say the same thing of traditional military training.

Stress training distinguishes between training and stress training. The way I explain the difference is that training is learning to fire a gun at a target whereas stress training is learning to fire a gun at a target that is firing at you.

Training = physical. Stress training = mental + emotional. Training + stress training = physical + mental + emotional.

This is an attempt at adopting a holistic approach to preparing a person to engage in a violent encounter.

The fighting trilogy also explains our natural response to a threat. The objective of our natural response to a threat is survival. The objective of 'Fight Activities' is to fight. To fight for a variety of reasons, including survival, but to fight nonetheless. They have to develop ways and means to counter our natural response to a threat. The target there is primarily the mental and emotional elements in the fight trilogy.

LeDoux refers to that as the conflict between evolutionary and cultural agendas. The evolutionary agenda is survival. The cultural agenda of Fight Activities is fight. They develop ways and means to resolve this conflict in agendas in their favour.

All Fight Activities training, including martial arts training, is at its heart a fight between our natural and learned responses to a threat.

Systemic Approach to Defensive and Offensive Aggression

Getting toward the completion of Fear and Fight: Understanding Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat. The conclusion ties up the reading experience for the reader and helps them  think about the bigger implications of the book content, the next steps that they can take, and the lessons that they can learn from what they’ve read. I use systems theory to accomplish those objectives.


A system is a set of related components that work together in a particular environment to perform whatever functions are required to achieve the system’s objective. There are four basic elements to a system: input, throughput (process), output, and feedback. 

Our natural response to a threat is a system whose objective is survival - the 'survival system.' The survival system is comprised of cognition (appraisal), feeling, physiological arousal, impulses to action, and over behaviour components that are interconnected via feedback loops and which work together to achieve the objective of the system - survival.

McCaughey (Real Knockouts, 1997) explains that learning to fight involves the coordination of thinking, feeling, and acting. McCaughey is describing a 'fight system.' The fight system contains the same components as the survival system, however, the objective is to fight. To fight for a variety of reasons but to fight nonetheless. At the very least, the components of the fight system cannot work against the behaviour component (fight) if the objective of the fight system is to be realised.


An Australian female university student who is a taekwondo black belt with many years experience was sexually assaulted on campus. She explains that she was capable of defending herself because of her extensive martial arts training, however, at the time of the assault she was ‘paralysed with fear.’ An American female judoka who had studied judo for self-defence two hours a day, five days a week, for 2 1/2 years was sexually assaulted, however, ‘she found herself dangerously unprepared for what happened during the actual attack.’ She explains how she had plenty of opportunities to strike back but she did not even scream. ‘Instead, she froze.’ These female martial artists were let down by a systemic failing in their training.

McCaughey refers to an instructor who remarked that the biggest problem with self-defence courses is an overemphasis on the physical without the mental and emotional:

‘There are people who don’t quite understand what they are doing when they teach … and I think part of it is that instructors don’t offer what I call a balance – mental and emotional aspect of human beings combined with physical skills …’ (1997, 110)

The same may be said of most martial arts.


The first step in remedying this deficiency in martial arts training and that of any activity associated with preparing a person to engage in a violent encounter is in understanding our natural response to a threat.

Many people use the fight-or-flight concept to explain our natural response to a threat. Unfortunately, most of those that do have a limited and flawed understanding of the concept and the concept itself is limited and flawed.

Many people also use the stress concept to explain our natural response to a threat. They often follow Bruce Siddle's efforts in Sharpening the Warrior's Sword, whether they know it or not. The stress concept was derived from the fight-or-flight concept and therefore all of the limitations and flaws associated with the fight-or-flight concept in explaining our natural response to a threat are inherent in the stress concept when used for the same purpose. Those limitations and flaws are compounded as stress research focused on the deleterious effects of 'stress' on health, thus further limiting and skewing their interest in our inherited survival mechanism.

A complete and comprehensive explanation of our natural response to a threat is provided in Fear and Fight. It also enables us to better understand our learned responses to a threat because they are all interventions in the survival system.