ABSTRACT
In a lifetime the people will experience a great many fears. At times a client will be astounded that the people can know what the unknown fear is, not that the people can define it perhaps, but at least the people can describe it. If impingements occur where support from the holding environment is missing, or the infant lacks competence, then primitive agony, "intense beyond description", is suffered for a split second before defenses in the ego can be organized against it. In the introduction to his work by Davis and Wallbridge, the author ran across the following list of what Winnicott referred to as “primitive agonies” or “unthinkable anxieties”: Going to pieces, falling forever, having no relation to the body, Having no orientation and complete isolation because of there being no means of communication. Winnicott uses the terms “impingement” and “trauma” to elaborate his hypothesis of the origin of severe psychopathology in adults.
