Anguish is an affective state characterized by a sudden feeling of apprehension which causes general discomfort, psychic and bodily displeasure. In the face of unpleasant or threatening situations, the crisis of anguish mobilizes our defense mechanisms.
Skiing anguish situations
For the vast majority of people, the sensation of sliding is pleasant, but it can become distressing as the perceived sensations of support diminish. This situation causes repressed skiing, causing muscular tension that interferes with the normal development of balance which in turn generates fatigue and more distress.
Another upsetting situation is the accelerations although they are perceived as exalting sensations for the generality of skiers, for some, facing the fall line is a source of distress and, therefore, they respond with reflex braking. The perception of speed can also be distressing, especially if it is judged as dangerous.
Slope’s abrupt changes are a source of distress producing postural rigidity due to the sensation of loss of support. On the contrary, for children and adults in sensation seeking, suppressing contact with the ground is an exciting experience.
Decreased visual information in adverse weather conditions (fog, flat light, heavy snowfall) can cause distress and anguish. Also, different ski boots may create a certain distressing uneasiness due to feet discomfort or restricted mobility of the ankles.
According to psychologist Gustavo Maure, the factors that increase scenic anguish in competition situations would be:
- Weakened desire or inhibited by unconscious defenses.
- Little sublimated aggressiveness.
- Unconscious conflicts or ambivalence towards triumph.
- Excessive rivalry.
- Handicap or inferiority complexes.
- Pressure from the spectator’s gaze.
- Excessive perfectionism in performance (critical Superself).
- Traumatic hyper-potency of desire (winning at all costs can be an obstacle).
- Unconscious tendency to failure.
- Disposition to easy irritability.
- Low frustration tolerance (being a bad loser).
Frustration
Frustration can be defined as the hindrance of an impulse or the impediment of a realization. It is a negative emotional state produced by the impossibility of reaching the desired goal.
The barriers that make it difficult to achieve this objective are called sources of frustration and are classified as external (the characteristics of the context); internal (our own conflicts); and personal (generated by our personality). The strategies generally used to cope with frustration are to combat the sources (realistic coping) or to confront the emotion or feeling provoked (unrealistic coping).
According to evolutionary psychology professor Ariel Bianchi, the determination to achieve a certain goal should include the risk of not achieving it and, if this happens, we tend to react differently:
- Through repression we block the expression of affects. We may discharge the accumulated tension through direct aggression towards the frustrating object or indirectly through withdrawal.
- If we have an extroverted personality, we tend to resort to the hysterical emotional crisis while being introvert to the intimate reaction.
- The protective reaction to dissatisfaction is also observed: we did not reach the goal because we were not interested in it.
- In denial of the situation, we refuse to accept reality.
- The devaluation of the frustrating situation allows the tolerability of failure because it is unimportant.
Albino Ronco defines frustration as a situation in which we are unable to satisfy a motive or a need because it is blocked by an obstacle. He argues that marginal frustrations may have little or no consequence, while frustrations of essential needs may have implications for our own existence. This author presents some situations that provoke frustration:
- In procrastinating we are forced to delay the satisfaction of a motive or a need.
- In lack we fail to obtain the object that would satisfy our motives. For example, one of the major sources of frustration is lack of self-confidence.
- Loss occurs when we fail to maintain a situation that provides satisfaction. Losses are generally frustrating, especially those that are beyond our control and that nothing can be done to repair.
- Failure is considered a lack or loss of an event in which a personal value was retained which causes a decrease in self-esteem that is generally accompanied by self-incrimination.
Frustration is not only caused by doing and making mistakes; it also arises from not doing. In this situation, we are locked in our own internal dialogues, remaining stuck in front of what we want but are not able to attain.
According to the neurologist and psychiatrist Victor Frankl, when pleasure is not the effect of a meaning, it becomes the objective of a forced intention, that is to say, a hyperintention to which is added a hyperreflection which leads to not doing, taking power away from the original desire. In this situation we find it impossible to do, to undertake the intended action but it is in doing that we become self-realized, that is to say, when we come out of our own confinement by thinking enough and not too much, and thus being able to face the environment. It is in acting when we realize that the sense of skiing appears, which also includes not being able to have everything under control, therefore, we will be able to get out of the frustration of not being able to do.
Skiing is not a perfect, rigid, inflexible behavioral structure since failure is within the realm of possibility. As we evolve as skiers we test not only our ability to adapt but also our tolerance for the frustration that comes from failures.
Refusing to keep trying after a failure is the source that feeds the pain of frustration. In skiing, even if an event means to us a serious mistake, there is always a new opportunity to try again. No time should be wasted in the immobility of frustration generated by failure because, in reality, failure is a better teacher than success.
There are different ways of reacting to frustration:
- Submission: we may give up and be unable to take action (inactivity or apathy). Submission is an ineffective attitude of taking action in the face of the obstacle. Example: the beginner who gives up easily in the face of the initial obstacles of learning to ski and enjoys the mountain by going on snowmobile rides.
- Direct confrontation: we act directly trying to eliminate the obstacle or frustrating situation. It may take the form of aggression, applying a planned effort to overcome it, or a combination of both behaviors. Example: we want to learn to ski in deep snow but find the first descents frustrating. We may overcome the obstacle through anger, which produces motivation to keep trying, by hiring an instructor with whom will determine the most appropriate planning, or through irritation that motivates us to apply a strategic plan to achieve our goal.
- Indirect achievement: we make a detour to the hindering situation and face it from another perspective through a rational approach. Example: avoid skiing down an entire slope with deep snow, instead, ski down sections with lighter or shallower snow.
- Substitute object: accepting a substitute object in place of the originally desired one. Examples: a beginner who, after several attempts, cannot master his skis may opt for cross-country skiing. An athlete who does not achieve the desired results in one discipline begins to practice in another.
- Withdrawal or avoidance: we respond by withdrawing completely from the frustrating context. Our personality and the perceived difficulty of the situation predispose us to avoid the problem rather than confront it. Example: after several attempts in skiing moguls we fail to acquire balance control and fall repeatedly, which is a source of frustration, so we totally abandon the activity.
In skiing, our psychological health is not characterized by the absence of frustration. It is not enough to understand the conditions of frustration as an emotional conflict but to determine different modes of behavior. We must convince ourselves that we can produce positive actions to overcome frustration and resolve the conflict it generates in us by trying to cope with obstacles, seek improvement by applying an effort to find solutions that will allow our self-realization.
