ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud succinctly summarized the conclusion of his discussion of anxiety in the following words: “a danger situation is a recognized, remembered, expected situation of helplessness”. The sequence of danger situations, following the traumatic situations of helplessness at birth and during early infantile periods of intense bodily need, are loss of object, loss of the object’s love, castration, and superego condemnation. Anxiety is the appropriate response to danger situations as it is to the initial traumatic situations. In danger situations, however, the ego attempts to restrict the anxiety response and to use it as a signal for instigating its own defensive measures. The danger situation, which is the occasion of anxiety, is what is recognized, remembered, and expected. Danger situations are thus personal constructions, and whether or not a person constructs a danger situation will depend on his or her conceptions and estimates of self relative to circumstance.
