Anxiety Part Two
Freud’s
distinctions run in two directions. First of all, of course, there is the affective
quality felt by an individual.
Even when
one acknowledges, that individual life histories, and the responses which are shaped by
such a history, may vary considerably from one person to the next, one still is able to
note differences that are, nonetheless, common to people in general. For example, the
sharp, piercing shock experienced when we are frightened, suddenly, is, for most us, quite
distinct from the experience of a 'knotted stomach' when we are apprehensive, say, about
the future.
Undoubtedly,
there may come a time when the affective quality one experiences might not be amenable to
any precise labeling. Thus, if one is in a state of severe, psychic pain, then,
distinguishing whether our feelings are instances of ‘fear’ or
‘anxiety’ may be very hard, if not impossible, to do. On the other hand, in
cases involving less severe forms of affective experience, one may be able to attach a
label which is fairly accurate in the manner in which it characterizes one’s state of
mind - regardless of whether the latter gives expression to fear, fright, or apprehension.
The
distinction Freud makes among these three terms also runs in another direction. The
circumstances within which a given event occurs often helps to shape the kind of response
or approach that will follow.
Consequently,
if a 'normal’ individual feels 'moderate’14 fear in a given
situation, one might, quite reasonably, assume this person may have some definite plan of
action deigned to control the situation despite subjective feelings of fear. Because of
the specificity which is characteristic of fear, the specificity provides an opportunity
for definite plans to be formulated.
On the other
hand, in cases of extreme fear, even the presence of specificity cannot guarantee that
such plan-formation will take place - or, if it does occur, that the plan will be
sufficiently well-conceived to be able to cope with the danger, at hand, successfully.
Obviously, a great deal depends upon the prevailing circumstances.
All of the
foregoing considerations, however, are in contrast to the hazy indefiniteness surrounding
apprehension The uncertainty characterizing such a situation limits the amount of planning
that can be completed precisely because the haziness or uncertainty shrouds some of the
significant factors that need to be known before a plan of action can begin to take shape.
Even in the case of fright - provided that one is able to recover from the initial,
paralyzing shock - one has an opportunity to decide an appropriate course of action on the
basis of available information and understanding concerning the nature of the situation
that caused the fright.
However, if
one does not know the exact nature of a danger, one lacks the type of data which can
channel and direct one's planning. Therefore, the range of possible modalities for action
is severely curtailed.
Returning to
the issue of an infant's basic condition of helplessness, there are several points which
emerged in the previous, brief elaboration of Freud's distinction among apprehension, fear
and fright, that need to developed somewhat. More specifically, both in terms of affective
quality, as well as the ‘shaping’ circumstances (i.e., the circumstances
surrounding each factor which are peculiar, for the most part, to that factor and which
tend to vary from person to person), apprehension was described, essentially, as being
‘directionless’ in nature.
One’s
sense of danger is pervasive, yet, the feelings often are not focused on any one thing -
or, to the extent there is such a focus, it tends to be very diffuse and ill-defined.
Furthermore, one has difficulty making plans to deal with the situation because of the
lack of specificity inherent in such feelings.
This lack of
direction is what lays the foundation for an apprehensive15 person's sense of
helplessness. The person in this condition seems to have little choice but to suffer under
the burden of helplessness since there is nothing in the contents of consciousness
containing sufficient concreteness and specificity which provides a ‘handle’
that the individual can grab hold of and around which the individual can rally, or on the
basis of which the person can develop a plan of attack.
The infant
who fears any sort of separation from her or his mother feels this same type of
helplessness. For the most part, the mother is the one who always has satisfied the
infant’s needs.
In many ways
(although certainly not entirely) the child's relationship to the mother has been
necessarily passive. Without skill, knowledge, power, and so on, the child has had to
depend on someone else's knowledge, power, and problem-solving skills. If the one on whom
the child depends is absent, the child is without means and without direction amidst a
host of needs.
There is a
further similarity between the sense of helplessness experienced by an infant and the
helplessness felt by an apprehensive adult. An infant's discriminatory capacities are
quite primitive.16
Undoubtedly,
a major reason for the primitive condition of these capacities is developmental. Many of
the mechanisms and processes which make even rough discriminations possible have only
begun, if at all, to maturate in an infant.
There is
another reason, however, for the primitive nature of an infant’s ability to make
useful distinctions among life experiences. This reason is somewhat of a corollary of the
developmental lag.
In order to
recognize a specific danger, as such, one must not only be aware of the source of, and
some of the circumstances surrounding, a danger, one also must be aware that a given
situation, object, individual, or process is dangerous. This distinction is not as simple
as it first appears to be - especially, in the case of a developing infant.
'Danger' is
a directed term. Within an individual’s referential system, a dangerous situation
envelopes a range of possibilities. 'X' is dangerous because: it leads to this type of
injury pain, problem, consequence, etc.
Certainly,
if an infant’s ability to discriminate is not well-developed, then, the range of
possibilities which might be generated by an infant with respect to some situation will be
limited, filled with mis-perceptions, and likely to contain problematic assumptions. In
fact, building a sufficient data base of distinctions and discriminations through which
something can be seen as potentially dangerous may take an infant or child some time to
develop.
Perhaps, an
example will help clarify matters:
"Among
the Hanuroo, who have names for ninety-two varieties of rice, any one of those varieties
is highly codable in the array of ninety-one other varieties. The Hanuroo have a word for
it and so can transmit it efficiently and presumably can recognize it easily. Among
speakers of English one kind of rice among ninety-one other kinds would have low
codability and would be difficult to recognize."17
Although the
foregoing quote is taken from a study pursuing different goals, the implication it hasfor
the present discussion is quite evident. More specifically, a mother’s absence
represents many potential dangers for an infant or child.
An infant
knows that unsatisfied needs are to be equated with pain, but this knowledge may not
extent much beyond the initial level of linking together: need, absent mother, and pain or
child has only a notion. The infant knows that unsatisfied needs tend to be bound up with
experiences of pain, but this knowledge likely does not extend much beyond the initial
level of linking: felt need, absent mother, and possibility of pain.
Having a
limited data base with which to work, an infant may not be able to recognize something as
dangerous, nor have developed a conceptual map which indicates what the implications of a
given situation, object, and so on, are for her or him - that is, what is possible and
what is not possible in conjunction with such phenomena. Thus, an individual who is not
aware of the possibility of death or what this entails will have parameters of
anticipation and expectation in relation to this possibility which are very limited, if
not non-existent.
The next
step seems unavoidable. In situations which are perceived by an infant or child to contain
a threat in relation to possible, or actual, separation from the mother, the phenomenology
of the child will be a function of anticipated pain from needs which go ungratified due to
an absent mother.
"Basically,
anxiety is an anticipatory internal response - an anticipation of an unpleasant event. The
cues that become capable of eliciting anxiety are those that have been associated on
previous occasions with an event that led to a feeling of fear. Later re-enactment of the
event - usually in thinking - leads to anticipation of the unpleasant feeling and to
anxiety. Thus, the anxiety response is elicited when the child anticipates some unpleasant
future, event, such as being physically hurt, deserted, punished."18
In terms of
'separation-anxiety', however, the 'unpleasant future' does not cluster around any one
danger, rather than some other one. Instead, the anticipated unpleasantness ranges over a
considerable number of different pains - all the result of needs which may go ungratified.
In short,
the unpleasantness is pervasive and diffuse. This is the exact opposite of possessing a
range of possibilities through which to understand a situation.
Although the
foregoing situation may be limited by the amount of unpleasant events which, on the basis
of previous experience, an infant or child, might be able to anticipate, the child
nonetheless, feels that anything within the known universe might happen, and the
individual doesn't know which of the possibilities needs to be feared or which of them
represents the greatest threat. Of course, in one sense, any type of pain is extremely
unpleasant and, therefore, as far as an infant is concerned, dangerous, yet, the infant
may be unable to settle upon the specific nature of the anticipated unpleasantness.
The pain
resulting from wet diapers is just as threatening - as far as unpleasantness and pain are
concerned - as is hunger. Because the infant is maturationally incapable of looking much
beyond the immediate horizons of pain, the infant does not understand that ungratified
hunger over a sustained period of time is much more likely to be a greater threat than is
the unchanged diaper (although this too, given time, can endanger the infant.)
Consequently,
the infant who fears separation from the mother not only lacks 'direction' with respect to
helping herself or himself, the infant also lacks 'direction' in terms of both the
specific nature of anticipated unpleasantness as well as the range of dangerous
circumstances which are possible and not possible. The helplessness experienced by the
infant is, to a large extent, the product of the directionlessness the child feels.
The whole
future is shrouded in uncertainty - except for the presence of a pervasive feeling of
anticipated unpleasantness. If one will remember, for a moment, the: manner in which Freud
described ‘apprehension', as well as, the manner in which that term, subsequently,
was elaborated by him, it is quite easy to understand the relationship between the two -
namely, separation-anxiety, when described in terms of apprehension, is seen to be a
general feeling of helplessness which is a direct. result of directionlessness in
important areas of need, planned action, anticipated forms of unpleasantness or pain, and
the establishment of a range of likely possibilities.
There is a
further consideration which emerges from a comparison of 'fear' and
‘apprehension’. The problem which arises out of this becomes quite clear in
relation to the issue of 'separation-anxiety'.
There is a
substantial tendency among many theoreticians today, to equate fear with anxiety, or, what
amounts to the same thing, to refrain from making any theoretical distinction between the
two. For instance, Robert White says:19
"Nothing
is gained at this point by making a systematic distinction between anxiety and fear . ...
roughly speaking, it is customary to use fear when the object of danger is unknown or
vaguely discerned. Such distinctions are more linguistic than psychological. Whatever the
status of the arousing object, the basic emotional reaction is the same."20
According to
such individuals, one might just as well speak in terms of ‘separation-fear’ as
'separation-anxiety' For these people, the two experiences give expression to, roughly,
the same phenomenology. One may use the two interchangeably, without significantly
affecting the meaning of the context in which either is found.
Nonetheless,
there might be good reason for believing that the foregoing contention obscures the
importance of making phenomenological and hermeneutical distinctions between the two which
goes beyond saying that, customarily, the only real difference between fear and anxiety is
that one has an object, while the other does not. Perhaps, one way of beginning to outline
a perspective which treats these two terms as different is by reflecting upon the
circumstances through which one is said to learn.
In the
comments that follow, no attempt will be made to say much about the process of learning
other than in a very general and rather vague way such as: it involves a cognitive
capacity to change, over time, one’s understanding concerning the character, meaning,
and value of experience. This definition - if one can call it that (it might be more
appropriate to refer to it as a description, but, then, any definition involves
description to some extent) - is offered because it contains two elements common to most
theories of learning - namely, a) a concept of 'change'; b) an assumption that human
beings are, to some unknown degree, inherently predisposed toward this kind of
transformation.
Of course,
any discussion which purports to examine the circumstances in which one is said to learn
without studying the nature of learning, itself, is prone to a number of weaknesses, not
the least of which is putting the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, the following
discussion may prove to have a certain amount of heuristic value with respect to the
issues of ‘fear’ and ‘anxiety’.
Whatever
else learning may entail, one needs to secure a good perceptual representation of any
situation about that which one would like to learn. Any given situation involves a certain
amount of information-content.
One’s
ability to withdraw content of value from such situations depends, to a certain extent, on
the nature of one’s sensory awareness concerning the objects or phenomena that are
helping to give expression to the contents within our phenomenology of the experiential
field. These sensory ‘withdrawals’ from the phenomenological engagement of
ontology, form the basis out of which mnemic images, or memories, arise.
The
quantitative character of these withdrawals, together with the quality of such
information, helps determine one's capacity to respond to a various kinds of situation in
the future. In fact, one might say that, the range of possible modes of interaction is
directly proportional to one's in-depth knowledge of that situation under-investigation.
In other
words, the degree of one's ability to cope successfully, when interacting with a given set
of circumstances, often depends on one's capacity to make transitions form one type of
understanding to another type of understanding in a manner which is resonant with, or
accurately reflects, within limits, various characteristics of the circumstances being
engaged. This capacity to make such transitions in cognition - that is, one’s ability
to change - is, in some way, functionally dependent o n both the quality and quantity of
the information one withdraws from what might be referred to as ‘basic learning
situations'.
Since the
present essay is not concerned with the precise nature of the aforementioned functional
dependence between change and information, the important point to emphasize here is that
the shape of learning - and, therefore, the character of cognitive transformation - is
intimately connected with the ‘shape’ or character of the information content
which is withdrawn from an array of phenomenological engagements with ontology.
Essentially,
each individual divides the world up into knowns and unknowns. One knows Bob and, Jill ;
one does not know Davis and Spencer. One knows Boston, one does not know Detroit.
Moreover, to
paraphrase Kurt Riezler, one does not just know facts of this kind or that kind. One also
knows, or does not know, certain possibilities:
"We
know what Mr. Smith can be or is likely to be. He will not suddenly turn into an elephant
and trample us down. He will keep within the limits of a definite order."21
This
'definite order' is a major component in our conceptual geometries - geometries which are
constructed from, and into which one fits, various facts, possibilities, beliefs,
fantasies, experiences, sensations, and so on, and which form so many points of conceptual
reference when confronted by 'reality'.
These
conceptual geometries contain the tools through which one attempts to engage life. They
are precipitates22, so to speak, that are derived from a set of ‘basic
learning situations’ which populate one’s interaction with existence. Although
the specific properties of these geometries depend on the directions in which an
individual life travels, the geometries, themselves, are broadly shaped, to varying
degrees, through what Harry Stack Sullivan calls: 'consensual validation’23.
The term is
fairly self-explanatory since, obviously, the individual does not grow up in isolation.
Roger Brown notes that:
"The
whole point of defining terms is to make it possible to go on and say something useful
employing those terms. With children, when we have finished defining, what we go on to say
is our total cultural tradition. ... Some of these propositions are intended to guide
action. They can only do so if the child can ‘cash’ the principle words into
referents. ... The codability scores of a linguistic community are a reflection of that
community’s total culture. In acquiring these codability scores the child is
acquiring a certain model of the world. When he has it, he will be able to receive complex
information concerning that model and will be able to act in the light of that
information."24
The world of
one's elders represents the universe of discourse to which one refers for support of one's
conceptual geometry, and, largely on the basis of such support, an individual becomes able
to classify, distinguish, identify, and represent the phenomena which one encounters.
Given the
foregoing perspective, anything which endangers the learning situation, endangers the
individual because learning constitutes the key which unlocks the mystery of unknown,
entities. By learning about the world, one becomes able, in time, to confidently interact
with various facets of that world.
Clearly, if
one does not learn about the world, one cannot venture into it and be able to adequately
cope with the experiences one encounters there. Under such circumstances, one has neither
guidelines, nor reference points, nor a framework through which to engage the world.
"This
system is the basis of nature or action. If we do not know the nature of a danger, we make
an assumption. Without such an assumption, we cannot act. Without such a scheme, we cannot
make such an assumption.25
"Maturation
of the child's perceptual capacity plays an important role in emotional development. As he
matures he becomes better able to discriminate among stimuli such as smiling and frowning
faces, pleasant and unpleasant voices, and friendly and angry gestures. Thus, new babies
between 2 and 6 months of age smile indiscriminately in response to nodding faces or
masks, regardless of whether the facial expression might be considered to be pleasant or
unpleasant from an adult’s point of view. However, by the second half of the first
year, some infants show evidence of discrimination among people by smiling at those they
know and showing a fear reaction to strangers." (P. 121)
The work of
Robert Fantz suggests that a certain capacity to discriminate may, within certain limits,
be active even within a few weeks following birth.
