Fear, Phobia, and Panic

Anyone familiar with the extensive literature on fear (anxiety), phobias, and panic disorders is inevitably impressed by the complexity of the topic. One set of questions can be formed from within the traditional structural hypothesis (Spira). Is anxiety to be singled out as a special response pattern, which, as a signal, is central to the function of the psychic apparatus? Are phobias one of a group of psychoneuroses susceptible to straight-forward analysis of the conflicts, compromise formations, and symbolic meanings by classical psychoanalytic techniques? Are panic disorders the result of the failure of the ego to restrict anxiety to its signal function or to the failure to create a stable symptom (compromise formation) such as a phobia through symbolic representations and defensive activity? Another set of questions can derive from alternative perspectives cited or implied by one or more of our contributors. Is fear one of a group of basic affects, each having great psychological significance but none having special intrapsychic adaptational importance? An affirmative answer to this proposal brings into question the psychoanalytic tradition of distinguishing between fear and anxiety and assigning signal anxiety a central functional role. How are we to regard empirical data that indicates unusual difficulty in the analysis of many phobic patients? Are we failing to ascribe sufficient significance to residues of traumatization (Rocah)? Are