ABSTRACT
In “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety” Sigmund Freud reformulated his first theory of anxiety in accord with the revised concept of the mental apparatus. In the new theory, a disturbance of libido economics is no longer regarded as the principal source of anxiety. According to the new theory, anxiety is evoked by a situation identified as dangerous by the ego. The clinical phenomena that led Freud to construct his first theory of anxiety present themselves in clinical work. A transient but sometimes permanent loss of sexual desire and potency associated with anxiety symptoms is found in men whose wives are pregnant. The fact that different forms of anxiety exist must have played a part in causing Freud to hesitate before abandoning the economic hypothesis with its basis in somatic processes. A theory of anxiety that disconnects itself from somatic processes necessitates the exclusion of the economic dimension.
