The great anxieties of our lives are based on childhood anxieties, underscored by childhood disappointments and traumas, embellished by our own rage and desires. These anxieties, usually organized around object representations, comprise our punishment fantasies. Punishment fantasies exist in opposition to “forbidden” childhood wishes, comprising our unconscious. Such wishes and punishment fantasies insinuate themselves into our waking lives, yielding the conscious anxiety with which we are forced to cope. In demystifying unconscious desires and anxieties we help patients gain greater freedom to seek the realistic pleasures available in their lives. To do this, the patients must be able to tolerate and to some extent master their experiences of anxiety.