Human energy is stimulated by a normal emotion such as fear.
Like fear, anxiety sets similar body processes in motion. But since nothing is
accomplished, the body is not called upon either to fight or flee, there is no
decision; and the anxiety may be prolonged, it may lead to
disturbances-respiratory difficulties, heart palpitation, muscular pain,
headaches, and gastrointestinal problems. Normal Anxiety Some degree of anxiety
is experienced by all of us.
Many psychiatrists believe that the major source
of it is man's con- science, an internal censor that begins to develop early in
life in response to real or assumed attitudes of parents and others close to
the child.
As the child grows up, he may accept some of these
standards, reject some, and eventually he develops a system of right and wrong.
When this sys- tem, or conscience, or internal censor, clashes with an
individual's natural desires in some situations (for possession, vengeance,
love, sex), his personality in a sense is divided, and he experiences feelings
of apprehension, tension, and inner restlessness. Anxiety has other sources,
too.
The conscience may take over the approval-disapproval functions of
parents, teachers, and others. But the individual still has need for the
approval of others. And anxiety may arise not only from a conflict with
conscience but because of the disapproval, or fear of disapproval, of other
people-family, friends, and employers.
Normal anxiety is part of the growth process, a natural
response when a child, for example, is threatened by separation from parents,
or when an adult considers old age and death. But if we need a certain amount
of anxiety to help give us initiative and responsiveness to changing
situations, to help us think and act creatively, there is also a sick or
unhealthy anxiety, an inappropriate or excessive response to a situation.
Chronic anxiety may reveal itself in abnormal behavioral patterns.
A
chronically anxious child may show his emotional disturbance or unrest by
nail-biting, thumb-sucking, or bed-wetting. A chronically anxious adolescent
may reveal it in excessive shyness or excessive activity. Obviously, anxiety is
not a pleasant emotion. As quickly as we can, we try to be free of it. For
this, we may use one or more defense mechanisms.
We may try to deny the anxiety or rationalize it. A
particularly common mechanism is repression, by which we exclude from the mind,
push down into the unconscious, any ideas or memories that might arouse painful
anxiety. But if the repressed material does not well up into the mind, it is
not inactive. It exerts drive. And we may use anyone or several other mental
mechanisms to keep it from coming into consciousness again. We may release the
anxiety indirectly and inappropriately, this, psychiatrists point out, accounts
for many cases such as, that of a young woman who, for no clear reason, often
became enraged with an older woman, under whom she worked.
Her rage was not warranted and, study revealed, it was
really directed toward her own unpleasant mother; but because she could not
tolerate the idea of being so angry with her own mother, she had shifted her
feeling to a substitute person. Not all mental mechanism~ for handling anxiety
are necessarily seriously harmful. A mother who is overly protective, for
example, may be using her excessive concern to disguise from herself some
unconscious hostility toward the child, and yet she may remain a reasonably
happy and effective person.
Actually, many defenses we erect against anxiety
may help us, contributing to our emotional equilibrium.
But if they are carried to excess, they become disturbing
and may lead to neuroses. Consider, for example, one way by which an
obsessive-compulsive neurosis may develop. A child becomes anxious because of
some hostile feelings he has toward one or both parents. He tries to repress
the feelings but this is not enough. To strengthen the repression, he shifts
his hostility toward an activity that disturbs. his parents-soiling, for
instance. But then the soiling disturbs him and to counteract the disturbance
he becomes overly preoccupied with cleanliness.
