ABSTRACT
In an organised artificial group, such as an army, the outbreak of panic, or its absence, does not depend on the amount of objective danger; of more importance is the lowering of the resistance to dread. Since air raids may produce panic in the civilian population it is well to consider the factors that facilitate or diminish panic, and what steps, if any, may be taken against it. Panic when it comes is always a surprise, the unexpectedness arising not from a new external situation but from a revelation of internal confusion or lack of control. Anxiety has an unmistakable affinity with expectation: it is anxiety about something. It has a quality of indefiniteness and lack of object. Anxiety can be a more or less normal phenomenon or it may be neurotic. Neurotic anxiety is anxiety about an unknown danger.
