Claustrophobia is the fear of being closed in, trapped in a small space. It is a common phobia. Many of us experience it in varying degrees.

I get a hint of it when in an overcrowded elevator. Hardly ever am I in that situation without a thought striking a bit of terror in my heart what if this thing stuck.

The experience of feeling trapped suggests another fear – the fear of abandonment.

Many of us not only live with this fear, we live in it a substantial part of our lives. Each one of us gives battle to the thought of being left where we are who we are, with no way out.

The poet, Kenneth Patchen, expressed it this way:

Isn’t all our dread a dread of being
Just here? Of being only this?
Of having no other thing to become?
Of having no where to go really
But where we are?
(“Blood of t…