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Those who support the view advanced here, that school refusal, agoraphobia, and some forms of animal phobia are best understood in terms of anxious attachment arising from disturbed family interaction, have an obligation to answer two questions that their theory poses. First, how comes it that a phobic patient is afraid, or at least is thought to be afraid, of so many situations, such as schools, crowds, or animals, that have nothing to do with his relationships with parents? Second, and conversely, if the basic problem of a phobic patient lies in his relationships with parents, how comes it that that fact so often goes unrecognized and that his problem is thought to lie elsewhere?
Answers to these questions are not difficult to sketch. Several processes seem to be at work through which the situations truly responsible become obscured and distorted and other situations are picked upon instead.
When an insecure individual, uncertain whether his attachment figures are going to be accessible and responsive, or even alive, is faced with a potentially fear-arousing situation, he is more likely to respond to it with fear, and also more likely to respond with intense fear, than is an individual who feels secure and confident in his attachment figures. Thus the increased propensity of an insecure individual to fear any and all of the myriad of potentially fear-arousing situations present in his life outside his family is readily explained. What then remains unexplained is why concern is commonly so narrowly focused on his fear of those extra-familial situations while his fear of what may be happening to his attachment figures is overlooked.
In Chapter 11 it is noted that, in any one instance, it may be far from easy to identify the nature of the stimulus situations