ABSTRACT
Annihilation Anxiety indeed is a constant confrontation with dangers to psychic survival. In the Symbolizing mode, Annihilation Anxiety could co-exist within a context of meaning making whereas in the Desymbolizing modification meaning was throttled. In the Symbolizing mode, Annihilation Anxiety could co-exist within a context of meaning making whereas in the Desymbolizing modification meaning was throttled. It hardly needs emphasizing that Desymbolized Annihilation Anxiety may have considerable clinical significance, and that Desymbolization and Annihilation Anxiety tend to be more often correlated than Symbolization and Annihilation Anxiety. Conversely, a regression of Annihilation Anxiety in the direction of Desymbolization reveals a regressive transformation in the direction of not only fragmentation of thought, structural de-differentiation, and a paralysis of the symbolizing function, but also persecutory ideas as an expression of negative transference. In spite of the profound conceptual distinctions introduced through Enunciation Analysis, there was a remarkable convergence with the findings which relied on the notion of Desymbolization and Symbolization of Annihilation Anxieties.
