Back-to-School Fears

Preventing Back-to-School Phobias and their Hidden Relationship to Dyslexia (LD/ADD) and the Inner-Ear

As highlighted within Dr. Levinson’s highly enlightening book, Smart But Feeling Dumb, there is an often overlooked but significantly higher incidence of school phobias — and 90% of all other fears/phobias — in those with Dyslexia and related Learning and Attention Deficit Disorders.

Dr. Levinson’s 40-year groundbreaking research effort with Dyslexia unexpectedly led to another discovery: that over 90% of all phobias are inner-ear-determined and respond favorably to inner-ear-enhancing medications and nutrients. In other words, Dr. Levinson demonstrated that Phobias are part and parcel of the Dyslexia/Inner-Ear Syndrome.

Because inner-ear-dysfunctioning dyslexics are physiologically predisposed to anxiety, they are more apt to develop school related phobias — especially considering the enormous academic and concentration-related reinforced difficulties they experience versus normal children.

And after a summer break from feeling dumb — having avoided devastating frustrations for months, it is no wonder that their anxious anticipation and fear of returning to the “failure pit” called school will escalate.

To minimize and avoid this escalating anticipatory anxiety — even “dread” and panic, it is imperative to understand and both medically and psychologically treat:

the inner-ear dysfunction responsible for both dyslexia and phobias, and
the anticipatory anxiety by providing crucial therapeutic insights to students, parents and school personnel.

Prior to Dr. Levinson’s research effort, most phobias were thought to be just “irrational” and just “in the mind.” However, by analyzing thousands of phobics responding favorably to inner-ear-enhancing medication used for dyslexics, it became clear that most all phobias could be classified and thus completely explained by impaired inner-ear and related cerebellar mechanisms regulating functions such as:

motion? fears of moving elevators, escalators, trains, planes, buses
direction — fears of getting lost or traveling alone
balance — fears of height and falling or walking across busy intersections
coordination? fears of driving, sports, accident proneness
overloading: visual — crowd phobias
overloading: sound — loud noises, parties or noisy environments, etc.
orientation and vertigo — fear of being alone without stabilizing others and associated fears of going to sleep — worse at night without visual re-orientation markers often intensify or trigger dizziness — make even worse when the eyes are closed

Hopefully these highly summarized but crucial insights within Smart But Feeling Dumb and Phobia Free will enable all learning-disabled and phobics to be screened and treated for inner-ear-dysfunctioning mechanisms and thus minimize or prevent their overlapping and interrelated syndromes.