Doctor Says Worrying Serves Hidden Purpose of Avoiding Childhood Pain

What was said

"Worry absolutely does do something. It takes us away from this pain, typically childhood, that's stuck in our body. The more we can stay in our heads and dissociate into our heads, the less we have to go down and experience that old alarm."

Kennedy presented a controversial view that worry and rumination are not useless behaviors but active avoidance mechanisms. He argues people ruminate to escape feeling stored bodily trauma, reframing a symptom typically seen as pointless into a protective dissociative strategy that paradoxically maintains anxiety.