"And there's a rising feeling of, at best, Euro-skepticism and, at worst, Euro-phobia," he said, referring to doubts about the promised benefits from the European Union's economic integration.
This can happen gradually, with graded exposures that build up to confronting a phobia, by experiencing the worst of your fears all at once (a technique called "flooding"), or through systematic desensitization, when exposures are paired with relaxation techniques.
The concept is a CliffsNotes version of traditional exposure therapy: the people with phobias are exposed to their worst nightmares until their bodies are too weary to respond with stress.
Always going on about politics, forcing our good press to wait with the questions America is asking, like "Do you have any phobias and stuff?" or "What was, like, your worst job ever?") "I don't know about that stuff," Mr. Voight responded.
And that tract is an unexpected boon to France's worst nativists, who in it see validation of their themes, obsessions, and phobias.
"I have a phobia of falling on the tracks, and this stop is my worst nightmare," the sales representative said.
Laden with phobias, curious notions, an extravagant vocabulary, a mannered inclination toward metaphor (he calls Sept. 11 "the worst day," as he does in the novel) and a possible disorder (there's a suggestion that he has Asperger's syndrome), Oskar is himself the key to the story.
Phobophobia- Fear of phobias.
