ABSTRACT
In anxiety disorders, according to classical psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisms are used to keep unacceptable impulses (anger, sadness, sexual impulses) or feelings and moral anxiety about their expression from entering consciousness. The unacceptable feelings and related moral anxiety become transformed into neurotic anxiety and expressed as an anxiety disorder. In phobias, the unacceptable impulse is repressed and the neurotic anxiety into which it is transformed is displaced onto a substitute object, which symbolizes the original object about which the unacceptable impulses were felt. The key defence mechanism is displacement. Thus when children say that they are frightened of a particular object or situation, the psychoanalytic hypothesis is that they are frightened about something else, but have displaced their fear from the original taboo object or event onto a more socially acceptable target. In generalized anxiety disorders, the defences break down and the person becomes overwhelmed with anxiety as the unacceptable impulses continually intrude into consciousness and seek expression. In generalized anxiety disorder, anxiety about a taboo object is displaced onto every available target (McCullough-Vaillant, 1997).
