Anxiety

Oxford Dictionary Definition

Anxiety (noun): "A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome." (Oxford Learner's Dictionary)

Gabor Maté

Understanding Anxiety: Maté views anxiety as a developmental consequence of early trauma and disconnection. When children suppress their authentic emotions to maintain attachment bonds, their nervous systems become chronically activated in response to perceived threats to their sense of self.

• Anxiety signals a fundamental loss of attunement with caregivers—the cost of abandoning one's authenticity to preserve crucial relationships • The mind-body connection means psychological distress manifests somatically; healing requires restoring genuine connection rather than simply avoiding threats • Treatment emphasizes rebuilding authentic relationships through compassionate inquiry, somatic awareness, and creating environments that welcome genuine emotional expression

"Safety is not the absence of threat; it is the presence of connection." — Gabor Maté

Philippa Perry

Understanding Anxiety: Perry conceptualizes anxiety as an internal messenger that emerges when our core emotions remain unacknowledged and invalidated. Rather than something to be managed or eliminated, anxiety serves as a signal that requires careful attention and understanding.

• Unmet emotional needs in childhood create patterns of self-dismissal that resurface as adult anxiety and persistent worry • Healing involves emotional validation and developing self-awareness—essentially learning to "re-parent" ourselves with compassion • Transforming anxious patterns requires staying present with uncomfortable feelings and sharing them in safe relationships, rather than avoiding or suppressing them

"When feelings are disallowed they do not disappear. They merely go into hiding, where they fester and cause trouble later on in life." — Philippa Perry, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (2019)

Daniel J. Siegel

Understanding Anxiety: Siegel frames anxiety as the result of impaired integration—when the mind loses its ability to coordinate different parts of itself and becomes trapped in states of chaos (over-arousal) or rigidity (over-control).

• Optimal well-being flows like a river between the banks of chaos and rigidity; anxiety emerges when we become stuck on either side • Integration—the linking of differentiated parts of the brain, body, and relationships—restores flexible, adaptive functioning • Healing practices focus on cultivating presence through mindfulness, developing coherent personal narratives, and building secure attachments

"The absence of integration leads to chaos and rigidity—a finding that enables us to re-envision our understanding of mental disorders." — Daniel J. Siegel

Irvin D. Yalom

Understanding Anxiety: Yalom traces anxiety to our confrontation with life's fundamental existential realities, particularly our awareness of mortality and the inherent uncertainties of human existence.

• Death anxiety—what he calls "the mother of all anxieties"—underlies many surface-level fears and psychological symptoms • Common defenses include fantasies of specialness or becoming indispensable to others, which provide temporary relief but maintain chronic underlying distress • Therapeutic healing involves directly engaging with life's finite nature, leading to more authentic living and deeper, more meaningful relationships

"Death anxiety is the mother of all anxieties." — Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy (1980)

Allan N. Schore

Understanding Anxiety: Schore locates anxiety in early disruptions of right-brain affect regulation, where caregivers' inability to co-regulate intense emotions becomes encoded in the developing nervous system as persistent patterns of dysregulation.

• Secure attachment establishes a baseline of calm alertness, while disrupted attachment patterns embed anxiety into the limbic-autonomic networks • Anxiety can manifest as both under-regulation (emotional volatility) and over-regulation (emotional numbness or alexithymia) • Healing occurs through right-brain-to-right-brain therapeutic attunement that helps rewire these deep neurological patterns toward balance

"Regulation is the key to the quiet mind." — Allan Schore

These perspectives offer complementary lenses for understanding anxiety's origins and pathways to healing, moving beyond symptom management toward addressing root causes and restoring fundamental capacities for connection and regulation.