A Developmental View of Anxiety—Some Clinical and Theoretical Considerations

FREUD'S MAJOR REFORMULATION OF THE THEORY OF ANXIETY IN 1926 has been followed by an ever-expanding literature which has not, however, always brought added clarity. Allen Compton's recent surveys of this literature (1972) have underlined many disparities of opinion and controversial formulations. There is, for example, no unanimity on the questions whether Freud's transformation theory is entirely replaced by the theory of signal anxiety; whether or not

the two theories are mutually exclusive; or whether the theories can be brought together in a unitary form, as Rangell (1955), (1963), (1968), for example, suggests. There is, furthermore, disagreement on whether the "actual neuroses"—and especially the anxiety neurosis—have any valid nosological status and, if so, whether or not they can be conceptualized within the framework of the transformation concept. Fenichel (1945) and Nunberg (1955) accepted the existence of "actual neuroses" in spite of the skepticism of many of their colleagues. Even the existence of the anxiety neurosis as a valid clinical entity has been called into question, notably by Brenner (1953) and, even more emphatically, by Stewart (1967); on the other hand, Blau (1952) and Rangell (1968) are among those who regard the condition as widespread. Freud's view of the etiology of the traumatic neurosis is not accepted by some writers, in particular Bre