Directionally-Specific Claustrophobia

by ANDY BOZEMAN

This story isn't intended to be funny, but it is interesting.

Whenever a claustrophobic client is encountered, conventional wisdom says, "every room has to be huge." But I've learned to say, "You're claustrophobic? Which way?"

Throughout my four decade long career as a home designer, I've encountered many people with a special condition, claustrophobia, which is a critical issue when designing a home. Imagine living in a house that causes anxiety in every room and around every corner, with no safe place to go, anytime, .........ever.

I'm not a trained psychological expert, but my experience does allow me to make some basic observations. Claustrophobia is very often "directional." People sense their surroundings in different ways, to different degrees, and in specific directions. Some people fear the feeling of being confined overhead, such as a low ceiling. Others feel the oppression from the side, or front, or back. By investigating, understanding, and concentrating on the direction of anxiety, it becomes a simple task to concentrate on the directions that matter, and exclude the directions that don't. An important factor is to determine if the phobia concerns a single direction, multiple directions, or all directions.

• As an aside, there's one more category to consider - none of the above. For people who fear getting into an elevator, it's very often not the confined space of the elevator, but the fear that the elevator will fall. So there. With that one sentence, for thousands of readers, I've healed the fear of confinement, but replaced it with the fear of falling. It's not easy being "mental." Now, back to c-phobia.

My very basic definition of claustrophobia is : A sense of the impending force of a possible attack, whether physical or emotional, that instills a desperate need to escape.

My observation that c-phobia is directional helps me design homes that remove or reduce the sense of impending attack from a specific direction, thus reducing the clients need to escape. I don't know any technical terms, so I've created some of my own. They sound like a joke, but I seriously use them to define the direction of claustrophobia suffered by a client.

Claustro-head-a-phobia : The fear of being attacked from above. Low ceilings or low-hanging objects instill the fear of running into something, being caught in a collapse, or attacked by "something" from above. The other side of this is ceilings that are too tall or harbor shadows from which danger could spring.

Claustro-feet-a-phobia : The fear of tripping or being grabbed by the feet. A floor cluttered with such objects as potted plants, tables and chairs in a restaurant, multiple scattered and layered rugs, even a complex pattern in the design of the floor itself, causes the need to be separated from the area confined by the objects.

Claustro-torso-phobia : The fear of being confined at the chest, shoulders and arms. Examples are : Stores with tall display cases, chest-high clothing racks, rooms decorated with shoulder-high plants, closet and cabinet doors that "invade" a person's space as the doors swing open.

Claustro-front-a-phobia: The fear of too little space to move and too little air to breathe directly in front, such as standing between rows of clothes in a narrow walk-in closet.

Claustro-back-a-phobia : The fear that an attack can come from the back, making it necessary to constantly monitor the area behind the sufferer, even in the person's own house, where danger lurks around every corner and within every shadow; or to sit back-against-the-wall, so nothing can be behind the sufferer.

Claustro-left-a-phobia and Claustro-right-a-phobia : The sense of danger from a specific side, left or right. I haven't been able to find evidence to suggest that right handed people are more often right-a-phobic, or that the converse is true. My observation has been that people who are "side"-a-phobic fear danger specifically from the left or right. I try to make sure that there are plenty of open spaces such as arches and windows to relieve the stress from the left or right.

Never try to save a customer from claustrophobia. The sensations and anxieties they fear are as real to them as you are to yourself. Instead, listen, observe, and try to understand the directionallity of the phobia. Sometimes, if you can uncover the direction of the fear, it can enlighten the customer by revealing the source, and instill relief by the realization that the oppressive force isn't all-surrounding. Then, you can design features in the house that address the actual fears for specific directions, like a wider aisle in a walk-in closet for a front-a-phobic, or by eliminating ceiling fans and chandeliers for a head-a-phobic. I have witnessed the life-changing relief that people feel when they make the personal discovery that danger doesn't exist on every side.

B-Learning along with E-Learning

by Andy Bozeman

It’s no secret. The people who can e-learn are the same ones who can…......just plain learn. 

If we look at four distinct times of existence, a startling fact emerges concerning who is able to learn:

• Past              Motivated students who knew how to learn


• Now              Motivated students who know how to learn


• Future           Motivated students who know how to learn


• Forever          Motivated students who know how to learn 

I’m all for devising remarkable ways to get information to the motivated students who already know how to learn. But I also want to concentrate on teaching more young people the basics of learning. No one can learn at the speed of light if they can’t grasp a printed word sitting still on a page.

Please join me in this process. Spend 95% of your time developing and disseminating light-speed learning processes. Spend 3% reinventing processes for basic learning (b-learning), such as reading from a printed page, and writing on a piece of paper, and doing arithmetic with a pencil or piece of chalk. Then spend 1% thinking about how to combine the two.

Don’t forget, we’re analog, not digital. We feel knowledge more than we absorb it. The sensation of holding a book, even an e-book device, creates a tactile connection, which becomes mental. Learning occurs through the senses – hand to eye to brain to hand. In my opinion, nothing will ever replace a piece of paper you can hold in your hand.

Did you notice that 1% is still missing? Here it is. Spend 1% of your time considering how to create motivated students. In all methods of education, bring back the old inspirational stories of morality and accountability, the stories that transcend religious biases, refute superstition, and  favor the uniquely human drive to be self-reliant, self-supporting, and self-fulfilled.

The greatest motivation comes when an individual realizes the connection between learning and living well. 

So, with combinations of b-learning and e-learning, let’s teach Living Well at Light Speed.

Who’s Talking About E-Learning?

I’ve never found it effective to teach with words like pedagogical, or pepper my lectures with phrases like Conversational Cognitive Model, and Neutral Contextual Behavioral Mode Perspective, and Environmental And Social Aspects Foci. But, every time I research anything about e-learning and e-teaching, most of the information I find is made up almost entirely of such words and phrases.

Of course, these vocabulations (It’s almost a real word) do mean something. But the people who do most of the talking about e-learning, the ones using such words, the only people who really understand them, are the ones who routinely say them…….. to each other. These types of words are for citizens of Academia, not the rest of us. And there's the rub. Or, maybe it's Contactual Ameliorating Manipulation.



Every industry and institution suffers the same fate. In every type of job, for individuals to standout from the crowd, for the cream to rise to the top, those who wish to be the cream must find better ways to show-off, or flaunt their abilities in comparison to their peers. However, at this point, the terms flaunt, cream, and poor judgment become equal.

For example, while channel surfing, I stumbled across one of those find-the-best-fashion-designer TV shows. One finalist was singled out for his submission, which was the most outlandish example of fabric-passing-for-clothes I’ve ever seen. The judges agreed. One of them said the most to-the-point, most widely applicable comment I've ever heard for our topic. She said to the contestant, “It’s obvious that you are so lost within the culture of fashion design, and you’re trying so hard to impress and out-do the other contestants, that you have completely forgotten your customers.”

Individuals, single entities, can school together to form a new entity, the group, or Cerebrationally Concurring Centristic Amalgamation. That group, in this case, is comprised of very well educated professionals of learning, who have become so focused on speaking to each other, that the object of their profession, the student, has been forgotten.

Therefore, when we talk about e-learning, I propose that we rededicate our efforts for the good of the student. Instead of pedagogical let’s say “about teachers and teaching.” Instead of Conversational Cognitive Model, let’s say, “find a way to say something so others can understand it.” And, when it comes to saying phrases like Neutral Contextual Behavioral Mode Perspective, and Environmental And Social Aspects Foci, ……well, ……let’s just don’t.

Afterall, which phrase works best : Vocabulistically Non-Academian Cognizance Inducing Socio-Intercoursional sans-Centric Mode, 

or Teach, so learning can happen?