ABSTRACT
The first appearance of anxiety in children is easy to see: it is separation anxiety, commonly known as "8-month anxiety" because of the typical age at which it occurs. This anxiety can take two forms: automatic or expectation. Automatic or traumatic anxiety is the immediate reaction to unpleasure, that is, to the internal rise in tension. Expectation anxiety anticipates the return of the first form, and especially the other's absence, with the result that the specific action that would remove the tension does not occur. Separation anxiety produces ongoing dependence and a perpetual attempt to merge with the image the Other presents. The process of separation brings about a major shift that can scarcely be overrated: an internal unpleasurable rise in tension is associated with the external other. The oedipal structure rewrites the original separation anxiety such that this primary interaction expands into relations with a first Other and a second Other, and this occurs, moreover, inside a gender differentiation.
