ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a paper at the 2005 James S. Grotstein Conference on Terrorism at UCLA. Terrorism is much in the news and the subject of a great deal of writing that deals mainly with the making of terrorists and their states of mind. The chapter examines different forms of persecutory anxiety and to differentiate terror from anxiety, fear, and dread. Appropriate fear can lead to the elimination or evasion of what is frightening or dangerous: one can kill a rattlesnake or avoid its habitat. Appropriate anxiety about feelings of helplessness or inadequacy can motivate the development of knowledge or skills leading to increased ego strength and the development of real sufficiency and potency. The particular experience of terror, found to be different in each instance, is linked to a specific quality of the phantasy which is felt to be too terrifying and too overwhelming to contain or to acknowledge as a part of the self.
