What does self knowledge, given it is real, do to a self, given it is willing to receive it, which is to say listen. On the face of it, the knowledge does not appear harmful, but if it is self which utilises it, then there is the question of why it does that, or does such knowledge act on the self and its conditioning to help heal it? Alternatively is the whole thing about self knowledge just another scam?
How would one do this? The immediate problem being that when fear (or anger etc) is present, there is only that - If there is awareness, there is no fear. And if I decide to observe fear - I am observing something that’s not there - something dead that I have conjured up from memory. And if I am observing some delusion of mine (my idea of fear), there is the problem of subjective interpretation of this delusion - ie fear is like this or that. What has been gained? - Apart from further conditioning.
Is the deluded individual capable of constructing such a plateform? And what is he going to look deeper into? Is there anything to look into that has any substance, any depth? And who creates the delusion that is looked into - and the entity that is looking?
The idea of a concept or image that can be held is obviously a scam. Self knowledge is realising what the self is - and a common mistake for those that have moments of insight is to hold on to their insight - thus transforming the insight into confusion.
Take the teachings of someone who has apparently had some kind of awakening (Buddha, Dogen, add name here etc) : all seem pretty useless when put into words.
The problem is simply dependance on self (thought, conditioning, interpretation) - as in belief that my personal perception of what is reality is actually correct.
The problem is not the content of self (ie. what I believe/know as a muslim, christian, socialist, etc) but the illusion that the illusion is a true description of reality.
The solution is to see what we are. Not by amassing data. But by seeing immediately that subjective interpretation is all that is possible by the organic machine/evolved animal that we are.
And thus meditation becomes the letting go of fear (which is interpretation) moment to moment - and not an effort of observation.
nb. interpretation being a mechanism to ensure security and progress - knowledge being power.
observation usually implies an observer observing, and stuff that is observed - all of which is the movement of the self.
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I’ll just address this one point to begin with, and possibly by extension, the others you have made.
Any memory of fear, which is now the label, has had a ground zero so to speak, so prior to its formation as a memory which then begets thought and reaction and then further image, there was recording, and the recording followed sensation. So then there is the question of what that thing now called fear is, prior to its formation as memory, and as word.
Psychological time as the past is forming the present, so that ground zero is right here right now where I am sitting. So it is not a looking back, it is a looking this very moment. Looking at it, it is energy, as sensation. Sensation is all the time, just as matter is, which is labelled reality, or the world. The world, as matter, as sensation is right here, right now, as it is each moment. The question arises, is the thing partially captured as memory and labelled fear, in sensation itself, or is it that all sensation is in it, so it is all around each moment. That is to say, what is called fear, and what is called matter are one and the same. So I may not be able to step out of it, or shake it off, but I can see what it is, before the formation of a memory, which is just a little bit of it, thinking itself separate from it all.
Cannot the brain see sensation, and recording, and formation of memory, given that is all so, if it will allow itself to get in really close? And what stops it doing that, if not the sensation of very, strong, fear, which is not in any past, but which is right now? Is that not the potential and the threat, that all fear is in fact now? that the very room, the very surroundings I am in, the very experiencing I am, is it. And does this not relate to the fact of reality having death in it, which is each moment, and what the significance of the biological organism dying is, and what relationship anything real is to true. To be continued…or should that be terminated 
This is really all about the veracity of anything I am seeing, or believe I am seeing, and whether it is possible to establish anything under these circumstances, since even the most notable element in reality, the event horizon known as death, when distorted by fear, cannot be accurately seen. This is why fear is in many respects the key, and being able to look at fear enables the brain to consider things about its reality that otherwise cannot be seen, because of their propensity to trigger fear, once a serious question about them is raised.
Fear, as in that part of energy hived off and named fear, and which is a partial thing, may go on to function as an interpreter of things, but is it solely that, or is its nature deeper than that?