December 10, 2023

If the actual experience we need is not available to us, we can, according to selfimage psychology, create that experience synthetically. Now, scientists agree that the human nervous system is incapable of distinguishing between actual experience and the same experience imagined vividly and in complete detail.
Worry is a good example of this synthetic experience. When a person worries about something, he projects himself mentally, emotionally, even physically, into a situation that hasn't even occurred. The man who worries intensely about, well, say, failure finds himself experiencing the same reactions that accompany actual failure, feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and humiliation, and eventually headache and an upset stomach.
As far as his mind and body are concerned, he has failed.