Freud figured among the foremost neurologists of his time, and his theoretical psychoanalytic formulations were always informed and modified in accordance with his medical knowledge and practice. Rather than physiological symptoms, however, it was
Freud’s observations about the function and peculiarities of his patients’ speech that led to the discovery of the unconscious and his subsequent formulation of psychoanalytic practice. Freudian psychoanalysis was not only circumscribed by the historical context of its genesis, but has also been subject to subsequent translations and
(mis)interpretations. Lacan’s so-called ‘return to Freud’ during the 1950s was primarily
aimed at the correction of what he perceived to be a gross misinterpretation of the central concept of Freudian theory; the significance of language and its effects on the human organism. Rather than providing abstract and conjectural evidence, Freud’s
formulated from clinical observation and modified in light of practice. 27 Analyses that divide Freud’s work on anxiety into two distinctly opposing theories may constitute a simplification. Before we consider this point further, however, it is useful to outline these theoretical positions and their relationship to/influence on Lacan’s thinking.
In Freudian theory, anxiety is inextricably entwined with the concept of
repression and its pivotal function in the formation of the unconscious. In Freud’s first formulation, anxiety was theorised as the product of repression. In concordance with a
‘hydraulic’ biological premise, this first hypothesis proposed that anxiety neurosis was incited when the adequate discharge of libidinal energies was impeded (Kahn, 2001, p.106; Salecl, 2004, p.18). Anxiety was thus theorised as a secondary symptomatic formation that occurred as the result of repression. But there remained an intractable difficulty with this hypothesis and it became apparent that a logical inconsistency underpinned this first theory. Freud was unable to reconcile ‘how an anxious reaction
towards an outside problem is related to an inner anxiety that the subject experiences’
(Salecl, 2004, p.19). If repression was the cause of anxiety, then the question arose as to what constituted the cause of repression (Kahn, 2001, p.107). Thirty years later, with the publication of Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety (1936), Freud revoked his original hypothesis and reversed its terms with the notion that anxiety had a fundamental constitutional role in the formation of the psyche.
As the consequence of the emergence and apperception of an internal state of
anxiety, Freud’s second theory proposed that repression is activated in order to allay its worst manifestations. Anxiety was thus posited as a fundamental necessity to provide the motive power for action. Without it the human organism would not be able to react to situations of danger. Put simply, anxiety was posited as a signal; the necessary early warning system that protects us from danger and automatically activates a heightened state of physiological arousal in order to act. The question for Freud, however, was how to differentiate between pathological anxiety and realistic anxiety. ‘Why’, he asked,‘are not all reactions of anxiety neurotic – why do we accept so many of them as normal?’
(Freud, 1936, p.158)
27
It is pertinent to note that both Freud and Lacan remained adamant that psychoanalysis was a
In psychodynamic terms, anxiety ‘can be provisionally defined as a set of familiar, unpleasant physiological events … that may or may not be accompanied by a
cognitive explanation’ (Kahn, 2001, p.195). In addition to bodily symptoms such as breathlessness, palpitations, muscle tension, fatigue, dizziness, sweating, and tremor, anxiety is characterised by nebulous mental phenomena of apprehension (Evans, 2003, p.10). In his most rudimentary understanding, Freud appeared to make a clear
differentiation between anxiety and fear. Thus construed, anxiety (automatic anxiety) constitutes the emergence of physiological events without any clear object cause, while fear (signal anxiety) is activated in response to a specifically identifiable object. The assumption of a definite object of anxiety, he suggested, transforms the unbearable nature of generalised anxiety into a fear that can be withstood more easily. The
symptom, therefore, becomes a necessary strategy for the negotiation of anxiety and the diminishment of its force.
Clearly, without an optimal activation of automatic anxiety the human organism would be unable to act in the face of physical danger. But Freud’s clinical observations
suggested that there was a component to anxiety that could not be explained by his original (biological) model. Anxiety was not merely the product of undischarged libidinal energy in the system, but extended to become ‘the response to helplessness in the face of danger’ (Kahn, 2001, p.108). This state of helplessness was posited by Freud
as a ‘traumatic situation’ where the excessive excitations, as in the libidinal model, could not be sufficiently discharged. The template for anxiety for Freud was thus located in
situations of danger such as ‘birth, loss of the mother as object, loss of the object’s love, and above all castration’ (Evans, 2003, p.10). Beyond the automatically activated state of emergency in the face of realistic imminent danger, however, Freud’s clinical
observations suggested that by far the most prevalent occurrence of anxiety was located in the anticipation of helplessness in the face of danger. The anticipation of a state of helplessness is located in (and reliant upon) the advent of the human infant’s ability to
represent an object, and thereby posit its disappearance or loss. As famously elaborated
in Freud’s experience of observing his grandson playing a fort/da game with a wooden top, the ability to represent an object when it is not present becomes both the moment of the loss of the object and the advent of the representation of the object in symbolic form.
Symbolic representation is therefore predicated upon absence, and marks the beginnings of language acquisition and accession into the Symbolic world. As Shepherdson
suggests in his foreword to Harari’s introduction to Seminar X (2001), anxiety arises as a distinctly human phenomenon on the cusp of language acquisition where the subject emerges in its most primal form.