Phobic Encounters: A Growing Impasse?

WHY DO PHOBIAS MAKE THEIR FIRST appearance after each of life's two major growth cycles (and why is this association unfamiliar to us)? Early childhood and young adulthood, the two most usual times of onset for phobic symptomatology (Fenichel, 1945) ; (Marks & Gelder, 1966, 1966); (Marks, 1970) ; (Terhune, 1969) are the periods following each of life's two most profound growth surges, the fetal-infancy cycle and the puberty-adolescence cycle (Stuart & Stevenson, 1954). Is there a relationship? This paper explores one possible connection between onset of phobic symptomatology and the accelerated physical, physiological, chemical and psychological changes just preceeding it.

The search for a correlation between growth or growing up as a phenomenon in and of itself (accelerated, as with a major growth cycle, or not) and the appearance of a psychiatric symptom becomes complicated by a psychoanalytic frame of reference and language that unfocuses our thinking away from the forward thrust to human energy and psychic force more than drawing our attention toward it. That is, our frame of reference, which emphasizes the actions of equilibrium -seeking life forces and manifestations of the psyche's desire to be at peace or regain peace tends to promote more of a moment-to-moment view and less of a perspective on the broader scale growing up that is, after all the natural, obvious and irrepressible outcome to it all. We sometimes consider the individual as a host to inner forces in constant flux within himself rather than as a growing up organism struggling to keep up with and actualize those forces propelling him forward into the unerring direction of his unfolding maturity. This contrast is overdrawn to make the point that a small difference in emphasis does make a great difference in what we look for and look at as well as in how familiar it is when we see it. Fenichel's discussion of the