Modern Wisdom #1050 - Donald Robertson - Practical Tools for a Less Anxious Life
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Jan 24, 2026 
Donald Robertson, cognitive-behavioral therapist and Stoic scholar, shares practical psychological tools for anxiety, anger, and resilience. He explains how emotions form, why avoidance fuels fear, and how exposure and worry-postponement techniques work. He also contrasts cognitive and acceptance approaches and revisits Stoic exercises for voluntary emotional control.
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Emotions Are Composed, Not Blobs
- Emotions are recipes of ingredients (thoughts, images, actions), not blobs of energy.
- Understanding those ingredients lets you target specific parts to change the emotion.
Extinguish Phobias With Repeated Exposure
- Use prolonged, repeated exposure to triggers to reduce phobic anxiety through habituation.
- Stay in the situation long enough and repeat it across days to extinguish fear responses.
Social Anxiety Is Cognitive Fear
- Social anxiety is fear of negative evaluation and more cognitive than simple phobias.
- Exposure works but is trickier and typically takes longer than for animal phobias.
