Dr. Nicholas Allan
3RY men’s health blogger Nicholas Carleton interviews Dr. Nicholas Allan in an article headlined “The Incredibly Complex World of Fear.”
Allan is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ohio University and oversees the Psychology and Social Work Clinic, an outpatient mental health clinic staffed primarily by doctoral student therapists of the Ohio University Clinical Psychology program.
Intolerance of uncertainty is one of three major risk factors that can lead to problems with anxiety and depression, according to Nicholas Allan, Ph.D., who runs the FEAR lab at Ohio University. The other two are fear of feeling fearful and social isolation. All three are up from normal levels. Since early in the pandemic, Allan’s lab has been working on new ways to help people handle these unprecedented times. His intervention: a group session and an app that helps people “mythbust” their maladaptive thoughts, then encourages them to do behavioral experiments, such as leaving home without double-checking that the door is locked. By the time they get home, they’ve proved to themselves that they can handle the uncertainty, and most likely their home is fine.
“The takeaway is the thing you were afraid of happening isn’t probably going to happen, and a lot of times, if it does, it’s not so bad,” he says. The fear is usually a miscalculation, our cautious brains believing it’s better to see a monster than what’s actually there: a boundless statistical gray area….
Read Carleton’s article in 3RY.
Allan notes that the Psychology and Social Work Clinic currently has fee waivers available as well as compensation for research participants.
- Contact the clinic by email at PSWC@ohio.edu or phone at 740-593-0902.
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