Abstract
A major shift in the concept of fear occurred in 1895 when Sigmund Freud separated out from the syndrome of ‘neurasthenia’ a specific entity he termed ‘Neurosis Anxiety.’ This conceptual demarcation had major consequences for the nosology of fear and anxiety. Most importantly, Freud’s delineation of pathological anxiety resulted in the description of a specific pathogenesis based on psychodynamic theories and the creation of a therapy, both instrumental in the medicalization of fear. This chapter provides a critical analysis of Freud’s construction of normal, and pathological fear and anxiety as well as the conceptual problems arising from his psychophysical reduction, which consisted in a pneumatic system of deflected sexual energy, and later, in memory images of early traumas.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Rollo May refers to Freud as “a giant who, like Marx and Einstein…set the tone for vast changes on our culture” (May 1996, p. 132). He further considered Freud as “the preeminent explorer of the psychology of anxiety…and provided understanding to both the mechanism and therapy” (p. 134).
- 2.
Freud, like Kierkegaard and Heidegger, defined anxiety (Angst in the original German) as objectless fear, but he used the terms fear (Furcht in the original German) and anxiety interchangeably in his discussion of clinical examples and in his theoretical discussions. For instance, he used the term “anxiety neurosis” in his early writings, switching to “neurotic fear” to denote similar concepts in later texts. In the Appendix to On the Grounds (Freud 1953–1975c, p. 116), James Strachey, the book’s translator, noted the overlapping connotations of the German words Angst, Furcht and Schreck, and considered that Freud was unable to provide a convincing technical connotation for Angst as distinguished with related terms (Freud 1953–1975c, p. 116). Furthermore, Strachey considered that Angst could be translated into English as ‘fear’, ‘fright’, ‘alarm’ and other related terms, and regards as “unfortunate” the translation of Angst as anxiety, a noun he considered to have only a “remote connection” with the German Angst. Angst is usually translated as anguish in both Spanish (angustia) and French (angoisse), and this significant problem in translation has been addressed by German Berrios (1996, p. 265). In Freud’s work, fear and anxiety are conceptually distinguished when, for instance, for some people being in a train produces fear, whereas thinking about travelling by train produces anxiety. However, as one commentator on Freud’s work on anxiety states “at present, it can be said there is no consensus on the difference between fear and anxiety” (Nersessian 2013, p. 180).
- 3.
Interestingly, Freudian writings on anxiety have, to my knowledge, never been the subject of philosophical scrutiny from a conceptual point of view.
- 4.
- 5.
Freud was following a consolidated tradition in psychiatry of linking anxiety to somatic disorders (Berrios 1999). Freud’s listing of anxiety attacks includes the forms of (1) disturbances of the heart, (2) disturbances of respiration, (3) attacks of sweating, (4) attacks of tremor and shivering, (5) attacks of ravenous hunger, (6) attacks of diarrhoea, (7) attacks of vertigo, (8) attacks of congestion (vasomotor neurasthenia), and (9) attacks of paraesthesias.
- 6.
“Normal” anxiety is summarily explained in Addendum B of Inhibition, Symptoms and Anxiety (Freud 1953–1975a, pp. 164–168). In this important section, Freud begins by defining anxiety as “indefiniteness and lack of object,” whereas fear (Furcht) always has an object. He remarks that “the problem” of conceptually separating “realistic” from “neurotic” anxiety “awaits a thorough examination” (p. 165). Freud defines realistic anxiety as produced by a known danger, whereas in neurotic anxiety the danger is unknown but probably instinctual. Once neurotic anxiety becomes conscious through psychoanalysis, it is not different from realistic anxiety. Nevertheless, a paragraph later Freud remarks that “in some cases the characteristics of realistic anxiety and neurotic anxiety are mingled” (p. 165). More specifically, Freud states that realistic anxiety converts into neurotic anxiety whenever the reaction to the danger is exaggerated.
- 7.
Lowenfeld (Freud 1953–1975c, p. 125), suggests against Freud’s sexual aetiology of anxiety disorder, that a severe fright may be sufficient to cause anxiety. Freud denied what he considered a “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, an astonishing remark given his later acknowledgment that his work lacked empirical confirmation (p. 128).
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
The rationale provided by Freud to substantiate his hypothesis is rather shocking. He writes: “Many years ago we were sitting around the dinner table—a number of young physicians—when an assistant in the obstetrical clinic told a jolly story of what had happened in the last examination for midwives. A candidate was asked what it implied if during delivery the faeces of the newborn was present in the discharge of waters, and she answered promptly ‘the child is afraid.’ She was laughed at and flunked. But I silently took her part and began to suspect that the poor woman of the people had, with sound perception, revealed an important connection” (Freud 1953–1975b, p. 344).
- 13.
Rollo May in his otherwise excellent rendition of Freud’s theories of anxiety tends to ‘straighten’ Freud’s account, in order, perhaps, to make it more accessible to the general public (May 1996). For instance, May states that the ego ‘perceives’ the danger which produces anxiety. Therefore, to avoid greater anxiety, the ego represses the impulses that would lead the person into danger. The ego is “inoculated” with a small quantum of anxiety in order “to escape its full strength” (Freud 1953–1975a, p. 162). But May’s explanation is still muddled. May refers to an ‘ego’ preventing the person (to whom this ego belongs) from suffering anxiety, and the “homunculus fallacy” described in the previous chapter is unavoidable. May’s proposal raises additional questions such as: how does the ego perceive danger? Does the ego, therefore, have a full repertoire of mental functions and organs of perception? What is the mechanism by which the ego manages to repress impulses? What inoculates the ego with a little anxiety?
- 14.
I am unable to do justice to Freud’s complex metapsychology in a chapter focusing on his concept of fear and anxiety. It is necessary, here, to set aside judgement of Freud on the validity of his theory of Oedipal complex and concepts such as the “degradation of libido,” “the super-ego [becoming] exceptionally severe and unkind,” and an obedient ego providing behaviours of “conscientiousness, piety, and cleanliness” (Freud 1953–1975a, p. 115).
- 15.
- 16.
Freud includes the fear of castration (a result of the Oedipal complex) as another important cause of anxiety, but discussion of this factor is not relevant to the conceptual discussion of the mechanism of anxiety.
- 17.
Given the complexity of Freud’s metaphysical system, a critical analysis of this therapeutic technique is beyond the scope of this work. I may point, as an example, to the controversial aspects of Freud’s concept of the “unconscious,” which is critically discussed by Bouveresse (1995, p. 75).
References
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
Barrett, C. (1967). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Lectures and conversations on aesthetics, psychology, and religious belief. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Beard, G. M. (1881). American nervousness, its causes and consequences. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Berrios, G. (1996). The history of mental symptoms: Descriptive psychopathology since the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berrios, G. (1999). Anxiety disorders: A conceptual history. Journal of Affective Disorders, 56(2–3), 83–94.
Bouveresse, J. (1995). Wittgenstein reads Freud: The myth of the unconscious (C. Cosman, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ellenberger, H. F. (1956). Fechner and Freud. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 20(4), 201–214.
Foresti, G. (2010). Freud’s writing in the twenties: Theory constructionand clinical research in inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety. In S. Arbiser & J. Schneider (Eds.), On Freud’s “inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety”. London: Karnac Books.
Freud, S. (1953–1975a). Inhibitions, symptoms, and anxiety (J. Strachey, Trans.). In J. Strachey (Ed.), An autobiographical study; inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety; the question of lay analysis and other works (Vol. 20, pp. 87–175). London: The Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1953–1975b). Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis (J. Strachey, Trans., J. Strachey Ed., Vols. 15–16). London: The Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1953–1975c). On the grounds for detaching a particular syndrome from neurasthenia under the description ‘Anxiety Neurosis’ (J. Strachey, Trans.). In J. Strachey (Ed.), Early psycho-analytic publications (Vol. 3, pp. 87–139). London: The Hogath Press.
Freud, S. (1953–1975d). Twenty-fifth lecture: General theory of the neuroses; fear and anxiety. In J. Strachey (Ed.), Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis (Vols. 15–16, pp. 340–355). London: The Hogarth Press.
Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A life for our time. New York: W. W. Norton.
Leavy, S. A. (2010). What happened to psychoanalysis? American Imago, 67(1), 73–87.
May, R. (1996). The meaning of anxiety. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Nersessian, E. (2013). Psychoanalytic theory of anxiety: Proposals for reconsideration. In G. Saragnano (Ed.), On Freud’s “inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety”. London: Karnac Books.
Shorter, E. (1992). From paralysis to fatigue: A history of psychosomatic illness in the modern era. New York: The Free Press.
Yahalom, J. (2014). Freud and Epicurean philosophy: Revisiting drive theory. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 50(3), 395–417.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Starkstein, S. (2018). Sigmund Freud and the Psychoanalytical Concept of Fear and Anxiety. In: A Conceptual and Therapeutic Analysis of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78349-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78349-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78348-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78349-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)