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In 1917, Freud wrote: “… there is no question that the problem of anxiety is a nodal point at which the most various and important questions converge, a riddle whose solution would be bound to throw a flood of light on our whole mental existence” (p. 393). And again: “We thus find ourselves convinced that the problem of anxiety occupies a place in the question of the psychology of the neuroses which may rightly be described as central” (1917, p. 411). Anxiety has remained of central importance in psychoanalytic theory. This is reflected in Compton's (1972) statement in the second of his three part comprehensive review of the concept: “… almost every psychoanalytic investigation touches in one way or another on the problem of anxiety” (p. 341).
Freud's first major writing on anxiety, published in 1895, included two important contributions. He identified and defined the symptoms of anxiety neurosis. By separating anxiety from neurasthenia, Freud gave anxiety a more visible place as an important phenomenon