Normal, adaptive anxiety is a feature inherent to human development. As we progress from one stage to the next, we have to experience anxiety to get from point A to point B. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud used the birth of the infant as a model for explaining what might happen in understanding anxiety. He saw us—like the baby leaving the womb—as leaving one comfortable place to enter a new place, though less comfortable initially despite its also affording greater freedom. With each developmental phase, new anxieties appear; we have to prepare for the next step towards autonomy.
Children learn to walk and to separate from their parents. In American culture, we often leave home to go to school or to college. Or, as we become sexually active, choose a long-term mate, entertain the complexities of parenthood, navigate the vicissitudes of normal aging, or cope with medical illness or death, we relive the built-in human experience of anxiety about what might happen in the next phase. Moving to the next phase provides the desired liberation from the constraints of the prior phase or a feared loss of those freedoms in the case of end-of-life stages. These anxious phases are all within the normal range.
In any given life, one phase’s progress may resonate with a particular person’s experience from a prior phase. For example, a child who suffers from early parental divorce or parental loss from illness may have a harder time leaving home and being independent due to painful memories or fears. A child might feel responsible for the caretaking of the remaining parent or feel that her leaving home might kill that parent, whom she also loves and needs. These fears could resonate with actual feelings stirred in association to the divorce, when people who are significant to the child’s world did leave and did cause pain.
Rick’s comments:
Freud ’s definitely onto something—I was doing just fine in the womb. Since then, things have gotten shakier. I’m aware that I have avoided potentially enjoyable, worth-while, and important activities because of anxiety—either because of fear of failure or just plain fear. This is where anxiety has not served a useful function. Instead of helping me to avoid danger, it whispers that life is dangerous so avoid, avoid, avoid . . . On the more positive side, when I don’t let anxiety and OCD prevent me from doing some-thing new and exciting, I have a real feeling of accomplishment.