ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the differential diagnoses in the realm of fear i.e., fear, anxiety, phobia, cowardice. It delineates the similarities and differences between fear and anxiety while showing how the two coexist in the state of phobia. Following this, the chapter gives a brief overview into the cultural realm and demonstrates how the unpleasant emotion of fear can be turned into the excitement of horror movies, gothic literature, and thrill-seeking games while, on the negative side of things, forming a part of ethno-racial prejudice and political oppression. It further comments upon the management of fear and fear-related phenomena in the clinical situation. That such work involves a great deal of countertransference vigilance and can be taxing for the analyst's ego goes without saying. All interventions in such work require patience, tact, and forbearance from the analyst (besides his or her interpretive skill) and the categorisation of such interventions here is largely for didactic ease.
