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CHAPTER 11
DISGUISES OF THE FEAR
OF PUNISHMENT
ONE of the most delicate tasks in the care of souls is to lay bare
the fear of punishment that many people disguise even from
themselves. It is of the first importance to do this because
spiritual treatment will be ineffective if the adviser is unable to
make a clear distinction between this fear and a real
guiltfeeling. If a person who thinks he is suffering from guilt when
in fact he is pursued by a fear of punishment be superficially
reassured, the way to real self-knowledge and freedom may be
closed. On the other hand, if a real sense of guilt be minimised,
the person suffering from it intuitively knows that he is not
being taken seriously. It does not help the work of healing, but
hinders it, to allow a penitent to underestimate the seriousness
of self-betrayal.
Fear of Punishment and Repression
There is nothing psychologically morbid or questionable
about the act of suppression. We cannot attend to anything
without excluding from our minds everything irrelevant to the
matter that engages our interest. The person who is unable to
shut the door of his inner life, turning away from and neglecting
some aspects and incidents of his past, can never acquire the
strength of personality to endure the strains and stresses of
present experience. Whether this natural ability is used or
misused depends upon what principle of selectivity governs our
acceptance or rejection of thoughts and feelings. We head for
trouble when we push aside the unpleasant facts of life merely
because they are unpleasant or refuse to acknowledge the truth
concerning ourselves because it is painful or unflattering.
Repressive mechanisms are always at work when we deliberately
put out of mind memories and emotions that disturb our
inward contentment. For obvious reasons, sexual ideas and feelings
are often dealt with in this way, but it is not true that they are
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