Anxiety historical perspective

Sigmund Freud recognized anxiety as a “signal of danger” and a cause of “defensive behavior”. He believed we acquire anxious feelings through classical conditioning and traumatic experiences.

We maintain anxiety through operant conditioning; when we see or encounter something associated with a previous traumatic experience, anxious feelings resurface. We feel temporarily relieved when we avoid situations which make us anxious, but this only increases anxious feelings the next time we are in the same position, and we will want to escape the situation again and therefore will not make any progress against the anxiety.

• In 1621, Robert Burton described the symptoms of anxiety attacks in socially anxious people in his book The Anatomy of Melancholy 1: “Many lamentable effects this fear causeth in man, as to be red, pale, tremble, sweat; it makes sudden cold and heat come over all the body, palpitation of the heart, syncope, etc. It amazeth many men that are to speak or show themselves in public.”
  • In the same book, Burton cited Hippocrates‘ writing on one of his patients, who apparently suffered from what we would call “social anxiety disorder” today. ^[1]

• Sigmund Freud recognized anxiety as a “signal of danger” and a cause of “defensive behavior”. He believed we acquire anxious feelings through classical conditioning and traumatic experiences.

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