Anxiety (ideas In Psychoanalysis)

E-Book Overview

Anxiety is a feeling that is familiar to all of us. But what exactly is it, and what function does it have in the development of the human personality? Anxiety serves as a signal that danger in some form is present. However, this danger may be perceived as arising from external or internal sources, and may be the conscious symptom of a variety of powerful fantasies in the unconscious mind. The author traces how anxiety has been conceived by psychoanalytic thinkers from Freud to the present day. Following Freud's original conceptions, Melanie Klein differentiated two major distinctions in the quality of anxiety: that involving threats to the self, and anxiety involving threats to loved ones. Since then, Wilfred Bion's ideas about containment of mental pain have come to occupy a central role in current psychoanalytic thinking, and are linked to work arising from attachment theory and neuroscience, placing emotional regulation at the heart of human development.

E-Book Content

IDEAS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS Anxiety RICKY EMANUEL IDEAS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS Anxiety Ricky Emanuel Series editor: Ivan Ward ICON BOOKS UK TOTEM BOOKS USA Published in the UK in 2000 by Icon Books Ltd., Grange Road, Duxford, Cambridge CB2 4QF email: [email protected] www.iconbooks.co.uk Published in the USA in 2001 by Totem Books Inquiries to: Icon Books Ltd., Grange Road, Duxford, Cambridge CB2 4QF, UK Distributed in the UK, Europe, Canada, South Africa and Asia by the Penguin Group: Penguin Books Ltd., 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ In the United States, distributed to the trade by National Book Network Inc., 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 Published in Australia in 2000 by Allen & Unwin Pty. Ltd., PO Box 8500, 9 Atchison Street, St. Leonards, NSW 2065 Library of Congress catalog card number applied for Text copyright © 2000 Ricky Emanuel The author has asserted his moral rights. Series editor: Ivan Ward No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN 1 84046 186 1 Typesetting by Hands Fotoset Printed and bound in the UK by Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading Introduction As I begin to write this book I am faced with many anxieties. Will I manage to finish it on time and get it to the publisher? Will it be good enough? Do I know what I want to say and can I say it clearly enough? This seems normal. Facing a new and potentially daunting task gives rise to anxiety in all of us. But how will I cope with these anxieties? Will they overwhelm me and lead to a paralysis of thought and writing, or will they spur me on to ‘create’ this book? What exactly are these anxieties? And what function, if any, do they have? If I try to examine exactly what I am anxious about – in other words, think about and name my own emotional experience – then perhaps the anxieties will be mollified. My anxieties are not necessarily irrational ones, although some of them may be. If I examine them more closely, I find that I am anxious about my performance. In other words, will I be judged harshly? Will I be exposed as fraudulent? Do I know enough about the subject to warrant having being asked to write this book? Will I find inspiration from what psychoanalysts 3 ANXIETY call my ‘good objects’, those mysterious guiding forces within me that are the basis of my security? Will my ‘uncertainty cloud’ about the whole enterprise be received and held by them, or will I let ‘them’ down? This latter anxiety relates to an intimidating or tormenting feeling associated with the fear of being harshly judged, but also a different quality of anxiety, a dejected feeling
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