ABSTRACT
If normal development leads often to disturbance of physical health it is clear that abnormal quantities of unconscious conflict may cause even more severe physical disturbances. It has been observed that anxiety often produces or is accompanied by some physical symptom. One physical effect of anxiety is the tendency to produce thinness. This may be partly due to an increased rate of metabolism, and certainly anxious children may at times overeat enormously and obsessively and yet remain thin. Children liable to asthma usually to some extent develop attacks in relation to anxiety—that is to excess of excitement over capacity for discharge. One of the effects of anxiety over the fantasy material is to bring about a lingering at the early stages of the act and simultaneously there is likely to be an obsessive attempt to masturbate in order to compensate for the lack of self-confidence that results from the inhibition.
