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"[[Anxiety]]" has long been recognised in [[psychiatry]] as one of the most common [[symptom]]s of [[mental ]] disorder.

[[Psychiatric]] descriptions of [[anxiety]] generally refer to both mental phenomena (apprehension, worry) and [[bodily ]] phenomena (breathlessnes, palpitations, muscle tension, fatigue, dizziness, sweating and tremor).

[[Psychiatrist]]s also distinguish between generalised [[anxiety]] states, when "free-[[floating ]] anxiety" is [[present ]] most of the [[time]], and "[[panic ]] attacks," which are "intermittent episodes of acute anxiety."<ref>Hughes, Jennifer. ''An [[Outline ]] of Modern Psychiatry'', Chichester: Wiley, 1991. pp. 48-9</ref>

The [[German]] term employed by [[Freud]] (''[[Angst]]'') can have the [[psychiatric]] [[sense ]] described above, but is by no means an exclusively technical term, [[being ]] also in common use in ordinary [[speech]].

[[Freud]] developed two theories of [[anxiety]] during the course of his [[work]].

In 1926, [[Freud]] argued that [[anxiety]] is a reaction to a "[[trauma]]tic [[situation]]," an [[experience ]] of [[helplessness]] in the face of an accumulation of [[excitation ]] that cannot be [[discharge]]d.

[[Trauma]]tic situations are precipitated by "situations of [[danger]]" such as [[birth]], [[loss]] of the [[mother]] as [[object]], [[loss]] of the [[object]]'s [[love]] and, above all, [[castration]].

He also [[links ]] [[anxiety]] with the [[fear]] of being engulfed by the devouring [[mother]].

This theme (with its distinctly [[Klein]]ian tone) remains an important aspect of [[Lacan]]'s account of [[anxiety]] thereafter, and marks an [[apparent ]] [[difference ]] between [[Lacan]] and [[Freud]]: whereas [[Freud]] posits that one of the causes of [[anxiety]] is [[separation]] from the [[mother]], [[Lacan]] argues that it is precisely a [[lack]] of such [[separation]] which induces [[anxiety]].

After 1953, [[Lacan]] comes increasingly to articulate [[anxiety]] with his [[concept ]] of the [[real]], a [[trauma]]tic element which remains [[external]] to [[symbolisation]], and hence which [[lacks ]] any possible mediation.

This [[real]] is "the essential object which isn't an object any longer, but this something faced with which all [[words ]] cease and all [[categories ]] fail, the object of anxiety par excellence."<ref>{{S2}} p. 164</ref>

As well as linking [[anxiety]] with the [[real]], [[Lacan]] also locates it in the [[imaginary]] [[order]] and contrasts it with [[guilt]], which he situates in the [[symbolic]].<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Fetishism: The Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real]]" (with W. Granoff), 1956. M. [[Balint ]] (ed.), ''Perversions: [[Psychodynamics ]] and [[Therapy]]'', New York: Random House, [[London]]: Tavistock. pp. 272-3</ref>

<blockquote>"Anxiety, as we [[know]], is always connected with a loss . . . with a two-sided relation on the point of [[fading ]] away to be superseded by something else, something which the [[patient ]] cannot face without [[vertigo]]."<ref>{{L}} "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Fetishism: The Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real]]" (with W. Granoff), 1956. M. Balint (ed.), ''Perversions: Psychodynamics and Therapy'', New York: Random House, London: Tavistock. p. 273</ref></blockquote>

In the [[seminar]] of 1956-7 [[Lacan]] goes on to develop his [[theory ]] of [[anxiety]] further, in the context of his [[discussion ]] of [[phobia]].

Even a [[phobia]] is preferable to [[anxiety]];<ref>{{S4}} p. 345</ref> a [[phobia]] at least replaces [[anxiety]] with [[fear]] (which is focused on a [[particular ]] [[object]] and thus may be [[symbolic|symbolically]] worked-through).<ref>{{S4}} p. 243-6</ref>

In his [[analysis ]] of the [[case ]] of [[Little Hans]],<ref>{{F}} "[[Work of Sigmund Freud|Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy]]", 1909b. [[SE]] X, 3.</ref> [[Lacan]] argues that [[anxiety]] arises at that [[moment ]] when the [[subject]] is poised between the [[imaginary]] [[preoedipal phase|preoedipal triangle]] and the [[Oedipal]] [[quaternary]].

It is at this junction that [[Little Hans|Hans]]'s real [[penis]] makes itself felt in [[infantile ]] [[masturbation]]; [[anxiety]] is produced because he can now measure the difference between that for which he is loved by the [[mother]] (his [[position ]] as [[imaginary phallus]]) and that which he really has to give (his insignificant real [[organ]]).<ref>{{S4}} p.243</ref>

[[Anxiety]] is this point where the [[subject]] is suspended between a moment where he no longer [[knows ]] where he is and a [[future ]] where he will never again be able to refind himself.<ref>{{S4}} p.226</ref>

[[Hans]] would have been saved from this [[anxiety]] by the [[castrating]] [[intervention ]] of the [[real]] [[father]], but this does not happen; the [[father]] fails to intervene to [[separate ]] [[Hans]] from the [[mother]], and thus [[Hans]] develops a [[phobia]] as a [[substitute ]] for this intervention.

In the [[seminar]] of 1960-1, [[Lacan]] stresses the [[relationship ]] of [[anxiety]] to [[desire]].

He also argues that the source of [[anxiety]] is not always [[internal ]] to the [[subject]], but can often come from [[another]], just as it is transmitted from one [[animal ]] to another in a herd; "if anxiety is a [[signal]], it means it can come from another."<ref>{{S8}} p. 427</ref>

In the [[seminar]] of 1962-3, entitled simply "[[Anxiety]]", [[Lacan]] argues that [[anxiety]] is an [[affect]], not an [[affect|emotion]], and furthermore that it is the only [[affect]] which is beyond all [[doubt]], which is not [[truth|deceptive]].<ref>{{S11}} p. 41</ref>

Whereas [[Freud]] distinguished between [[fear]] (which is focused on a specific object) and [[anxiety]] (which is not), [[Lacan]] now argues that [[anxiety]] is not without an [[object]] (''n'est pas sans [[objet]]''); it simply involves a different kind of [[object]], an [[object]] which cannot be [[symbolise]]d in the same way as all other [[object]]s.

This [[object]] is ''[[objet petit a]]'', the [[object-cause of desire]], and [[anxiety]] appears when something appears in the [[place ]] of this [[object]].

Even in the usually comforting experience of [[seeing ]] one's [[reflection ]] in the [[mirror]] there can occur a moment when the [[specular image]] is modified and suddenly seems strange to us.

Whereas the [[seminar]] of 1962-3 is largely concerned with [[Freud]]'s second theory of [[anxiety]] ([[anxiety]] as [[sign]]al)), in the [[seminar]] of 1974-5 [[Lacan]] appears to [[return ]] to the first [[Freud]]ian theory of [[anxiety]] ([[anxiety]] as transformed [[libido]]).

Thus he comments that [[anxiety]] is that which [[exists ]] in the interior of the [[body]] when the [[body]] is overcome with [[phallus|phallic]] ''[[jouissance]]''.<ref>{{L}} ''[[Seminar XXII|Le Séminaire. Livre XXII. RSI, 1974-5]]'', published in ''[[Ornicar?]]'', nos. 2-5, 1975. [[Seminar]] of 17 December 1974</ref>