Expanding the Interpersonal Theory of Self-Threat—On Apprehension and Dread1

… if I have ventured amiss—very well, then life helps me by its punishment. But if I have not ventured at all—who then helps me? And … if by not venturing … I have gained all earthly advantages … and lose my self! What of that?— Sfren Kierkegaard

PSYCHOANALYSTS DIFFER, OFTEN SHARPLY, in their conceptions of anxiety—its nature, origins, and meaning. And they differ, perhaps even more crucially, in their ways of working with it in the clinical situation. They do not differ, however, in considering it a fundamental process in human psychopathology, and a pivotal dynamic in the analytic inquiry. In this, there is unanimity; anxiety is a cardinal concept for all analysts. And for all, anxiety signifies some form of self-threat, the referent dimension of selfness varying according to each analyst's theoretical perspective.

It was Freud himself who first observed that "… anxiety is the fundamental phenomenon and main problem of neurosis" (1926, p. 144). Nevertheless, it was left to the interpersonalist Fromm-Reichmann,