The
topic we are to explore in this conference is an experience familiar to each of
us here: ‘anxiety’. Perhaps the most useful way for us to approach this subject
is for me to introduce it, point out some of the issues it raises, and then
discuss some of your questions concerning anxiety or any of the topics closely
associated with it, such as self-knowledge, the meaning and purpose of life,
and the different ways anxiety influences us.
Why
is it considered worth our time and energy to focus on this subject, unpleasant
as anxiety often proves to be? For one thing, our interest is practical. We
search for some adequate way of coming to terms with our own anxieties. Any
light we can receive on dealing with anxiety is a contribution to a happier,
more fruitful life. We also realize that the people who mean most to us, and
the society we live in have their own anxieties. If we might gain some insight
concerning the condition we call anxiety, we will understand better the persons
we associate with and, to some degree our times as well. For, W. H. Auden, the most influential of our American poets, just
after WWII, in 1946 published a work the title of which characterized the
period as “The Age of Anxiety”. He already heard the undertones of a
frustrating culture that would burst forth more than a decade later in the late
60s. The bathos of the opening lines convey something of the anxiety and
futility associated with the boredom arising from the absence of a worthy
purpose: “When the historical process breaks down and armies organize with
their embossed debates the ensuing void which they can never consecrate, when
necessity is associated with horror and freedom with boredom, then it looks good
to the bar business.” The anxiety of modern life was perceived not only by an
intuitive poet, but also by the most widely read philosophers of the second
half of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger in
Anxiety
is an experience that affects every human person in various degrees of
intensity at each period of life. If we study anxiety in its cultural
manifestations we discover that it assumes various forms at different periods
as well as in the various types of culture. Its influence is often masked and
remains largely unconscious in its diverse expressions. In our present time, it
has become a more prominent, and often more harmful influence among youth than
it had been in an earlier age. A recent
survey shows that some 7% of youth require medical treatment for anxiety,
while, no doubt, there are many more suffering from disturbing but less
incapacitating anxiety symptoms. This well attested fact has many and complex
causes, social, psychological, and spiritual. Some of the more important
factors contributing to the high incidence of this affliction are widely
recognized in our American society. I
list a few of the more obvious factors: 40% of births in the year 2008 were to
single mothers; depression, violence, and even suicide among youth have been
numerous and are increasing, alcoholism and drug use are common and notably
frequent in Universities, pornography has become a widespread addiction, and
the faithful practice of religion decreasingly influential in the public
square, and rejected by a large segment of the university population.
The
condition that we identify in our English language as ‘anxiety’ consists in a
restless state of mind, often with a degree of confusion and self-doubt,
whether conscious or unconscious, that regularly is accompanied by somatic
reactions proportionate to the intensity of the experience. Like a number of
other terms expressive of common psychological and mental states, the term,
‘anxiety’, refers to a range of psychic and somatic experiences that escape
comprehensive, clearly established boundaries. As a result, anxiety is
variously defined by those who have studied it most seriously. In psychiatry,
anxiety is viewed as a state arising from perception of pain or threat of
danger to the self. This anxiety commonly leads to repression of the idea or
image associated with the pain. Different causes are characteristically viewed
as sources of such apprehension; forbidden sexual thoughts or impulses are
stressed by Freud, whereas Adler emphasized feelings of inferiority, to mention
but two examples. Philosophers and theologians penetrate more deeply into the
human condition and view anxiety as a feature of existence itself. Paul Tillich, for instance, has this definition: “Anxiety is the
self-awareness of the finite self as finite.” His view then is ontological,
that is to say, he considers anxiety at the level of being, and holds that it
is not derived from anything; it is given with existence and so is always
present, though often latent. To be human is to be limited, threatened by
nothingness, subject to death. “Psychotherapy cannot remove ontological
anxiety,” Tillich wrote, “because it cannot change
the structure of finitude. But it can remove compulsive forms of anxiety and
can reduce the frequency and intensity of fears. It can put anxiety ‘in its
proper place.’” (cited in “The Concept of Anxiety”,
xvi ,cf. n. 40.) Only a spiritual approach can heal this deep cause of human
anxiety. God alone is the measure of the human person.
In
the year 1842 already, Soren Kirkegaard
drew attention to this subject by his work “The Concept of Anxiety”. His focusing on the topic initiated the
modern concern better to understand, describe, and treat the conditions arising
from anxiety. In a work published in the year 1895 an expressly clinical
approach to understanding the manifestations and causes of anxiety was
inaugurated by Sigmund Freud. As Freud followed up an insight by his colleague,
Joseph Breuer, a gifted physician, he discovered that
anxiety is the immediate cause of certain bodily disorders and disturbances of
behavior, notably hysteria. As he explored the psyche further, he elaborated a
theory of human development that has had enormous influence on Western culture
not only in medicine, but as well in morals, politics, law, and literature. In
the mid 20th century analysis of anxiety occupied some of the most
influential philosophers, notably Heidegger in
Anxiety is not entirely a negative condition. There
are forms and degrees of anxiety that are important for adequate and wholesome
human functioning. This role of anxiety is brought to clearer light if we
consider how the term is employed in various contexts. This word refers to a widely
differing range of experience, depending on the context in which it is
employed. We regularly make such statements as “I am anxious to see whether
On
the level of physiology, anxiety results in the production of hormones that
ready the body for activity by stimulating the nervous system, thus making ready the brain for alert and focused
intervention. Such effects of anxiety take place through the emotions that are
inherent in anxiety. For anxiety itself in not a primary affect or emotion;
rather, it is a complex, multileveled state of the body, psyche, and mind that
includes more basic components. Both fear and love are constituents of anxiety
in all its manifestations. Rightly to understand the nature of anxiety in
specific circumstances, we must grasp something of the dynamisms operative in
the various emotions concerned, in so far as they derive from fear and love.
There is a hierarchy of the emotions, in fact, that reveals significant
features of their specific character. Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) analyzed
the human emotions, pointing out the dynamic nature of their relations. For
instance, fear derives from love. We do not fear loss of what we are not
attached to by love, including life itself, and such conditions of life as
health and well-being. Consider such an emotion as possessive love, which gives
rise to anxiety that causes unrest that leads to unreasonable, compulsive
behavior. Such self-defeating anxiety associated with passion tends to produce
the rejection it fears. [For example, some years ago, the chief justice of the
NY Supreme-court was so dominated by this erotic passion for a woman he was
attracted to that, when she rejected his advances, he made himself such a
serious nuisance as to cause her distressing anxiety. He persisted in harassing
her in spite of a court order to desist.
He ceased only after being condemned to prison where he served an
extended sentence.] Saint Thomas understood that a more specific knowledge of
the virtues and vices and the emotions accompanying them, enables us more
effectively to enhance what is helpful and to weaken and eventually to
eliminate those features, such as possessiveness, that are contrary to our true
good.
What
are effective ways of dealing with anxiety? The importance of identifying
the underlying causes and hidden components of anxiety became more evident
and means of doing so better understood through the work of Sigmund Freud
beginning in the last decade of the 19th century. In a work he
published in 1895 with Dr. Joseph Breuer, Studies
in Hysteria, Freud described the mechanism that explained effectively, if
not entirely, the causes of the symptoms of hysteria. Of equal import in that
work is the identifying of the specific treatment of the patient suffering from
the debilitating symptoms. Nothing could be simpler: it consists in talking
freely about the feelings and events associated with the presenting symptoms of
the affliction. [Actually, it was Breuer who made the
discovery that an unconscious, repressed memory is at the root of the neurotic
behavior or somatic symptom. Freud
studied the nature of this memory intently and explained in concrete detail the
mechanisms giving rise to the symptoms. The specific memory is one that is
associated with painful conflict and resulting anxiety, too intense for the
subject to confront, and so leads to repression. We saw this process at work in
the case of the taxi driver veteran.
These
observations were to prove the beginning of a profound shift in the
understanding of human psychology and behavior, finding application in many
domains, not only in patients suffering from hysteria. Recognition of the fact
that people are influenced by unconscious images that bear upon their
perception of others and of their society penetrated into various areas of
Western culture, including medicine, sociology, law, teaching, advertising, and
politics. Freud’s further explorations led him to offer explanations that were
controversial in his insistence on sexuality as the basic cause of conflict and
anxiety that resulted in crippling symptoms in many instances. He wrongly generalized
from cases he treated that sexuality in the form of Oedipal
conflict was at the root of character formation and a major cause of neuroses.
Before
long other gifted investigators and experienced clinicians, accepted the
fundamental insights that unconscious memories and images that were a cause of
inner conflict, were responsible in many instances for
a variety of neurotic behavior and symptoms. But some of the most perceptive,
such as Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, disagreed with the exaggerated emphasis
Freud placed on the sexual influence in development and as cause of neurosis.
Often, Jung discovered, tension due to sexual urges was absent or relatively
minor in persons suffering from psychic conflict. He observed that other
factors, such as the lack of a sense of purpose in life, and the absence of
religious dedication were regularly the cause of people’s psychic disorders
with their accompanying anxiety. Other investigators, Adler at the head of the
list, repudiated Freud’s sexual doctrine, finding personal relations far more
significant, beginning with problems of one’s self-image. He emphasized the
feeling of inferiority that, along with social feeling, explains the
development of human character. Erik Erikson gave
special prominence to interpersonal relations in his descriptions of
personality formation and character development.]Increasingly society’s values
and goals, that are mediated in the schools, have been
identified as exerting large influence on the formation of character and on
behavior. When these values are not suited to the welfare of the needs of
individual persons they result in much of the anxiety that accompanies human
development. With the changes in the attitude of society toward sex that has
taken place since the diffusion of Freud’s early theories, and the marked
increase in sexual acting out, hysterical neuroses have become much less
common, only to be replaced by a wide variety of psychic and behavioral
disorders that in many respects are causes of greater human suffering. Infidelity, lack of abiding personal
commitment, divorce, children knowing only a single parent, and addiction to
pornography among other issues have admittedly become major social and personal
disorders in current American society and contribute to the increase of
anxiety-related suffering.
Society
itself increasingly suffers from self-inflicted injury that is a source of
human misery. The causes are multiple, to be sure. Far from curing the problem,
the sexual revolution has resulted in creating larger sources of human
dysfunction. Freud had shown the role of the father in the formation of human
character and in resolving the anxieties of early childhood. Already in the
early 1930s, the brilliant Harvard sociologist, Patrick Daniel Moynihan,
predicted the disastrous consequences for society of the increasing number of
fatherless families in the black population. He was widely criticized by
liberals, especially by black leaders, as prejudiced. Some twenty years later
when his predictions were acknowledged to have became
reality, he was recognized as a prophet and given prominent positions in
Federal government. Since then the problems associated with the absence of a
father have spread among other population groups in our country. Last year some
40% of births in the
What
does all this have to do with our discussion of anxiety? I submit that this
state of affairs is in large measure the reason for such a striking increase of
the incidence of anxiety and among the youth in our present-day society. To
take one instance among others, many professors offer biased, materialist
interpretations of scientific findings that reflect anti-religious and
traditional values are offered to students as being justified be scientific
findings. At the same time, it is treated as unacceptable to offer
interpretations of the same data that support religious teachings even though a
number of competent scientists consider these more logically compelling. This
materialistic bias influences the attitude of many university students who are
led to consider that science has answers opposed to religion belief. [An
example of this result was presented in the NY Times in an article that
reported on the funeral of Pope John Paul. The journalist interviewed a 20 year
old American girl who had come to
# _ #
Some
summary comments by way of conclusion:
Anxiety
is a condition of our organism, operating consciously or unconsciously, that
results from tension aroused by some real or imagined threat to our sense of
security or self-worth. Within limits that vary with individual character and
temperament, it serves an essential, helpful purpose. A healthy anxiety causes
one, for example, to apply one self with greater attentiveness to study before
an important exam; it makes the physician duly cautious in prescribing
treatment so that he mobilizes his energy sufficiently to acquaint himself with
the possible side-effects as well as the benefits of a particular medicine.
Like any number of other affective states, however, anxiety becomes a hindrance
to well being. From serving as a defense against harm, it can become a source
of failure, and even be self-defeating. All too often we bring about what we
are most anxious to avoid. There are countless instances of this mechanism in
history and in daily experience. The student who is so under the influence of
anxiety that he cannot concentrate on the subject; the speaker who, because of
anxiety to be favorably received by the audience, forgets his speech or
delivers it in a halting manner and so alienates.
Learning
how to deal with life’s inevitable anxieties is a major aspect of human
development and a condition for a healthy maturity. No easy formula proves
effective for all the various causes of anxiety; however, there are some
general, basic approaches recommended by wise and enlightened persons that have
shown their efficacy in all kinds of circumstances. At a time of transition in
his life following the crisis, full of anxieties, that led to his conversion
and baptism into the Catholic Church, Saint Augustine, one of the most original
and gifted thinkers in the history of Western culture, made a prayer that
summed up the program he was to implement throughout the remained of his long
life: “I desire to know God and the soul. Anything else?
Absolutely nothing.”
(Soliloquies, 1.2 PL 32:872) This
desire arose from his prior discovery that union with God in eternal life is
the purpose and goal of human existence.
Practical
ways of dealing with anxiety: Self-knowledge and practice examination of one’s
inner life: limited time regularly entering into experience more deliberately
& fully. 1. Recognizing it early on when possible to deal with it more
effectively. 2. Acknowledging as deriving from my character, not some
accidental happening. Forming a realistic image of self so I
set the right goals, and expectations. 3 Examine the experience until
you find some point at which you can with effort change your response, however
insignificant it may seem. 4. Follow through by looking for opportunities to
test your insight and apply it to life. 5. Examine good experiences so as to
identify more fully with the strengths involved. 6. Spend time daily in
prayerful encounter with the Lord so as to experience his mercy, love, concern
for you.7. A major factor in anxiety is weak self-confidence; we rely on
unworthy circumstances, i.e.: charm, wit, humor, intelligence, success,
attractive bodily features, popularity, possessions etc. All these prove
deceptive sooner or later as is stated in the ending of Prov
31:30: “charm is deceptive, beauty is vain; the wise woman is blessed; let her
praise reverence for the Lord.” Pater also dealt with
the best approach to anxiety: by trusting faith. “Cast your cares upon the Lord
and he will care for you.” (1 Peter 5: 7) and in a Psalm: “Put your trust in
the Lord and He will act.” 8 Learn to love in truth. Love is strong and firm
when selfless. Tenderness may accompany true love, but of itself is readily
deceptive, unstable, and limited. It can avoid hurting the loved one when true
love inflicts a lesser hurt so as to avoid a later serious harm.
Go
to index page
.