What Is Neurotic Anxiety

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How is neurotic anxiety different from healthy anxiety?

Healthy anxiety is an emotional response to danger.

Neurotic anxiety is also an emotional reaction to danger, but only the danger in this case is either imaginary or inappropriate to the size of the anxiety.

An example of healthy anxiety: the alarm raised by the message of an impending hurricane.

An example of neurotic anxiety: anxiety that a man has when trying to talk to his boss about a pay increase. In this case, the strength of the alarm is the same as in the case of an impending hurricane. There is a discrepancy between the level of anxiety and real danger.

But, as Freud wrote, despite how it looks from the outside, the danger with neurotic anxiety is experienced as realistically as with objective anxiety. The only difference is that in neurosis, anxiety is due to subjective, not objective factors.

Freud believed that these subjective factors were generated by instinctive sources. This means that the sources of danger are our Super-I (moral prohibitions and norms of behavior) and It (repressed instincts, unmet needs, forbidden drives). Our I perceives them as a danger.

Helplessness with anxiety is explained by the fact that our I depends on It and the Super-I.

An example when the Super-I (moral prohibitions, norms of behavior) threaten our I.

I want to make money, but my shame does not give me, how I want to do it, for example, is in conflict with my norms of behavior. Tension and anxiety are growing.

In this situation, in order to overcome anxiety, it is necessary to move into shame and be aware. What is he for? Why am I ashamed of myself if I make money this way?

If you go deeper, then after realizing your shame or repressed feelings, you need to understand what consequences I am afraid of if I allow myself what I want.

How to understand this?

Let's accept the fact that anxiety is a signal that something is threatening our vital values. Each person has different values. With objective anxiety, we may be threatened by an earthquake. It threatens our lives. An earthquake is an objective factor.

In neurotic anxiety, the threat factors are always subjective.

For example: a man is afraid to talk to his boss about a salary increase, fearing his dissatisfaction. This is accompanied by anxiety. Why? The boss’s dissatisfaction is a danger, but what does it threaten? What is the value inside this man?

If a person has masochistic inclinations, then he is dependent on the boss, as on the mother or father in childhood. He feels that he cannot survive without the patronage of the boss, or that only the boss can fulfill important life expectations for him. Therefore, maintaining good relations with superiors is a matter of life and death for him. And he will experience anxiety as strong as during an earthquake.

If a person has a predominant need to seem perfect and his safety depends on how he meets his own standards or on what others expect of him. Then asking for a salary increase will be seen as a threat, for example, to his reputation as a highly spiritual person or unmercenary, etc.

Conclusion: Neurotic anxiety is due to subjective internal factors.

To overcome it, three important questions need to be explored: What is at risk? What is the source of the danger? And what is the reason for my helplessness in this process?

This makes it possible to see how neurotic anxiety is. How objective is the danger or is it caused by subjective factors that are not related to objective reality. And will reduce anxiety