ABSTRACT
Anxiety is a complex phenomenon, which both at the level of individual experience and as the subject of academic study, concerns points of uncertainty which inevitably give rise to conflicting interpretations and evaluations of its principal causes, defining characteristics and significance for our lives. While our conceptions of this unpleasant part of being human have become more complexly detailed and subtly nuanced, there is still no consensus among researchers as to how far we should recognise anxiety as a normal or inevitable aspect of life in modern societies. Moreover, where we have achieved a greater understanding of the possible causes of this experience, anxiety seems to retain a sense or appearance of indeterminacy which guarantees that its precise origins will always remain open to debate. Accordingly, from the outset of our discussion the reader should remain alert to the fact that it is only possible to write on this subject by adopting a selective point of view.
