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Anxiety: The concept given by Sigmund Freud

In general, anxiety can be defined as excessive and persistent worry about everyday situations. Anxiety can be normal in stressful situations such as public speaking or giving a test and it acts as an indicator of underlying diseases. The major symptoms of anxiety are fast heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and feeling tired.

The Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud emphasized that anxiety is a felt, affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger. The unpleasantness is often vague and hard to pinpoint, but the anxiety itself is always felt. Sigmund Freud was the first to state that anxiety is a type of personality trait that is an innate tendency of an infant to act in any stressful situation. This anxiety an infant gets from his/her biological parents and is not learned.

 

Anxiety according to Freud can be seen in 3 ways-

  1. Neurotic Anxiety- It is an apprehension about an unknown danger. It generally originates from id impulses( part of our ego), which is responsible for seeking pleasure. It generally occurs when we feel intense worry about our and our loved ones' safety that something bad is about to happen without any external stimuli around us.

  2. Moral anxiety- It stems from the conflict between the ego and the superego, part of our ego that deals with moralistic and idealistic principles. We generally encompass such persons in our surroundings who suffer from chronic shame and feeling of guilt over not living up to proper standards which might not be unattainable.

  3. Realistic Anxiety- it is closely related to fear. It can be defined as an unpleasant, non-specific feeling involving a possible danger. It can be seen when a person fears a dog for having a dog bite, this fear can be a result of the person’s prior experience of dogs.


Anxiety explained by Sigmund Freud covers a wide range of it. It divides the topic into 3 types and also considers the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious which is generally the root cause for the origin of any anxiety. But in the general view, we majorly consider the physiological symptoms of anxiety by generalizing its causes. Freud believed anxiety at some level is useful for us as it warns or prepares our body to respond in a stressful situation. When this anxiety crosses the optimal threshold level of an individual it develops into several anxiety-related disorders such as OCD, anxiety disorder, phobia and panic disorder.


In conclusion, we can say that anxiety serves as an ego-preserving mechanism because it signals us that some danger is at hand and makes our ego to be alert for any impending danger. The signals of impending danger stimulate us to mobilize for either ‘flight or fight response’.



~ Isha Gupta (Intern at YTT)
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