ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis has regarded anxiety as an affect, a psychological construct central to the psychoanalytic model of intrapsychic conflict and its resolution, and a symptom common to many psychopathologic syndromes and the central feature of several of them. Psychoanalysis developed a coherent theory of affect much later than theories of drive, motivation, or defense. The topic of anxiety was central in S. Freud’s thinking from his earliest psychoanalytic writings to the end of his career. Freud’s neurophysiological model of anxiety was based on the assumption that a major regulatory principle of central nervous system function is the tendency to reduce excitation. The new psychoanalytic model of anxiety conceptualized it as a psychological event, the mental reaction to the anticipation of danger. Operationally defining psychodynamic terms and demonstrating their reliable use is a prerequisite to psychodynamic contributions to research on anxiety.
