ABSTRACT
There are several areas that contribute to the individual's predisposition to anxiety: hereditary - constitutional factors, prenatal conditions, the birth experience itself, and early postnatal experience. Several "developmental lines" of anxiety are described in some detail: strangeness and stranger anxiety, anxiety by contagion, separation anxiety, and anxiety through loss of love or security. Stranger anxiety can occur whether or not mother is present, whereas separation anxiety occurs in the absence of mother whether or not anyone else is present. Harry Stack Sullivan describes learning by the "anxiety gradient" as learning to discriminate increasing from diminishing anxiety, with alteration of activity in the direction of the latter. The self-system is an antianxiety system - not the whole self - which functions as a compass to steer the infant away from experiences of increasing anxiety and toward maximum euphoria. The dynamism of the self-system is purely a product of interpersonal experience arising from the general pursuit of satisfaction.
