Fear and Safety

The perpetual endeavour to avoid fear and find safety is integral to the human condition, rooted in biology and manifest through our most rudimentary behaviours. We seek to navigate ourselves away from all that terrifies us, and inhabit a life in which we feel safe from significant threat. Yet, despite the seeming benefits of evolution, evidenced by sophisticated contemporary social and cultural contexts, many people experience a lack of psychological safety, and face unrelenting fears. Such terrors include fear of speaking out against the status quo, fear of making mistakes, and fear of circumstances we know to be wrong, but about which we seem helpless to abate. Yet an environment of psychological safety, where individuals can live free of unnecessary fear, depends upon collaboration and collective commitment. No single individual can create safety for everyone else, yet collectively we can make the world safer for everyone. This principle is true for safe homes, safe workplaces, safe schools, and a safe society. Thereby, fear and safety are both psychobiological and socio-political phenomena. Consequently, to foster safety and dispel fear requires personal and organizational commitment to the wellbeing of others, at the level of action and policy. The Fear and Safety Project seeks to investigate these phenomena, and identify ways in which people can live safely free from fear.