Book Blog | The Loudest Guest

The Loudest Guest is the complete package.

In it, Dr Amy Silver unpacks the fear emotion, breaking down the science behind why fear arises, and taking the reader through the process.

She contextualises fear as just one of many emotions we experience, not better or worse but different. Fear has a useful purpose in that it can protect us from harm or even death, but its usefulness diminishes when it is over-represented in our thinking.

She assigns three potential roles to fear, each one having a different level of control in our mind. The director, the advisor, and the commentator. She contends that fear should be not be a director in our mind, nor an advisor. These two roles result in a commanding role, or a role where we constantly need to seek input. Neither of these roles allow us to achieve a balanced perspective when it comes to fear. By assigning fear a commentator role , we can receive the input it provides, but we get to choose what we do with that input. Thinking about it like this puts us firmly in control of the decisions we make, rather than being ruled by fear.

What I like about this book is that it guides you through the theory of why fear exists and the many ways it can manifest -- a bigger catalogue than I had previously considered! It then provides compelling arguments as to why we need to be able to recognise and draw on fear only when it serves us.

Dr Silver introduces us to the ‘controlling fear cycle’ model. This is a six step model which is then explained,chapter by chapter. The model takes the reader through a process to understand and manage fear. Each chapter contains practical reflection exercises which transforms the book from an interesting read to an incredibly useful resource. 

I would highly recommend this book. We all experience fear, but not many of us consistently use it as it was designed, to help, not hinder our progress.

Brigid Leishman, Principal Consultant, Leishman Consulting Services