According to the American Psychological Association (APA), anxiety is an emotional disorder hallmarked by feelings of worried thoughts, tension, and physical changes in the body such as elevated blood pressure (Nieuwenhuys, & Oudejans, 2012). People with the disorder usually show recurrent intrusive thoughts and concerns. Therefore, anxiety can affect both the behavior and the physical well-being of an individual. However, most fundamentally, anxiety can also influence the personality of an individual because of its toll effect on the focus, patterns, clarity, and actions of the person. Because it primarily alters the neurotransmitters and the patterns of the brain, it most likely causes an individual to think differently in various situations, experience a myriad of emotions, and also making it harder for the affected person to interact with others. The Psychoanalytic theory discusses the organization of personality and provides a framework on which psychopathologies can be treated. Using the psychoanalytic perspective, the role that anxiety plays in the development and maintenance of personality becomes easily discernible.
Anxiety is at the epicenter of the psychoanalytic theory of feelings (Affects). Through anxiety and its psychoanalytic analysis, people can understand the whole concept of mental conflict which develops as a result of bad feelings. In assessing Freud's views, he asserts that anxiety should be regarded as a ‘'toxic transformation of the undischarged libido.'' Freud related the failure of discharge to several factors that include inadequate or incomplete sexual practices, unacceptable desires, and repression that could subsequently result in ‘'psychoneuroses'' characterized by obsessions and hysterias. As such, due to these unsatisfied human pleasures, anxiety leads to an increased sense of negativity hence making it difficult for an individual to see themselves without it. However, in 1926, Freud changed his theory with regards to how anxiety influenced the personality of an individual. In his new model, he asserts that the ego is the personality aspect that deals with reality. In this process, the ego must also cope with the contradicting forces of the id and the superego. Whereas the id strives to fulfill as the human desires and impulses, the superego on the other hand attempts to influence the ego to work in a moral or idealistic manner.
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As earlier intimated, part of the reason why anxiety causes a change in personality is due to the altered neurotransmitters in the brain. Fenichel (2014) noted that with the changing brain patterns, one tends to think differently and experiences different emotions that they would normally have not. It, therefore, becomes increasingly harder for them to operate normally including interacting and creating relationships. In an attempt to explain this, Freud goes ahead to intimate that the ego sometimes finds it hard to cope with the demands and desires of human beings. Additionally, it can also fail to manage their moral standards and the constraints of reality they possess. Therefore, in his view, anxiety is as a result of the unpleasant inner condition that people attempt to avoid. According to Fairbairn (2013), he regards anxiety as a signal directed to the ego showing it that things are not happening correctly. Freud further mentions three types of anxiety that include the realistic, moral, and neurotic anxieties. Realistic anxiety also known as fear occurs when an individual gets into life-threatening or dangerous situations. Moral anxiety occurs when the threat emanates from the internalized sphere of the superego. Examples include the feeling of guilt, shame, and fear of punishment. Neurotic anxiety occurs when a person is unable to control the various impulses that originate from the id. It might manifest when an individual loses control, rationality, or temper among others.
Understanding how human beings' personalities are affected by the anxiety disorder requires a keen understanding of the concept of tension reduction. Human beings are always eager to reduce the damaging effects of anxiety through a given defense mechanism. Fairbairn, (2013) asserted that the defense mechanism is said to be either maladaptive or psychologically healthy, but the ultimate goal is to reduce the tension. When anxiety occurs, the mind can respond in two different ways. First, it will attempt to increase the problem-solving efforts, and secondly, it will trigger the various defense mechanisms. In this regard, the ego develops strategies that it uses to mitigate the effects of the id and the superego. Important to note is the nature of the defense mechanism. First, they operate in the unconscious mind and secondly, they can transform, distort, and falsify reality in a given way. Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans (2012) asserted that the overall effect is a changed personality that culminates from the interaction of the id, ego, and the superego to develop defense mechanism against the development of anxiety.
Further understanding how anxiety affects or influences the personality of an individual requires an analysis of Horney's theory of anxiety. In outlining the analogy of a child, Horney explains that the main way in which anxiety affects an individual is through the psychological conflicts created in their mind. A child, in their position in the environment, will show signs of anxiety as a result of anything that attempts to disturb their sense of security in reference to their parents. Horney explains this in what she terms as basic anxiety in explaining some of the factors that are likely to affect the personality of a child due to anxiety. Parental indifference, a lack of warmth, insufficient guidance, and a lack of respect to their needs will cause a child to develop patterns of anxiety that would have a toll on their behavior. Lader (2015) asserted that basic anxiety also leads to the feelings of resentment towards the people surrounding an individual. In her theory, Horney postulates that when a child is under anxiety, they develop a sense of resentment towards their parents which is a contradiction with what they expect from their parents. Therefore, from this, it remains apparent that through anxiety, people develop an opposing feeling towards others that makes it difficult for them to establish strong social relationships. The individual, therefore, experiences basic hostility as a result of staying in an environment that fails to satisfy their desires.
In expounding on the concept of basic anxiety and hostility, Horney discusses that the presence of basic hostility denies an individual to develop with inner freedom to express their true thoughts and feelings. Therefore, using the position of a child, Lader (2015) illustrated that she explains that exposing them to constant sources of anxiety affects neuroses hence influencing their person they are due to a change in attitudes. Some of the stressors that an individual could be exposed to that ultimately lead to anxiety include harassment, unpredictability, and hostility. However, Horney explains that when someone is constantly exposed to such stressors, they develop coping mechanisms that henceforth define their personalities and character. In most situations, the coping mechanism might not be the best, and this explains why an individual with anxiety might fall short of social skills amongst other problems (Ewen, & Ewen, 2014). In attempting to explain the nature of personality that a person would employ when under anxiety, Horney outlines three neurotic trends that include moving towards people, moving against people, and thirdly moving away from people. In moving towards the people, the individual will tend to adapt using strategies such as compliance and self-effacing. In moving against people, the person will show characteristics such as aggression towards others. Those moving away from people mainly include individuals who want solitude and thus find it hard to relate to others.
In furthering the analogy of the analogy of the child, Horney explains that the personality that one employs as they develop to their adulthood is influenced by several factors that include an individual’s natural disposition and the several factors they experience in their environment. Aspects such as fighting, parental indifference, and overprotection amongst others have an immense role in leading to basic anxiety that ultimately creates a certain form of hostility within a person. Therefore, Ewen and Ewen (2014) noted that the basic anxiety concept explains how psychological conflicts arise and how the conflicts evolve to inflict changes in one’s personality as they cruise to their adulthood. Therefore, anxiety creates a form of disturbance on one’s personality and thus, without any therapeutic intervention, one can employ an unhealthy life characterized by difficulties in establishing reliable social relationships.
In conclusion, Freud and Horney agree in one critical area that anxiety dramatically influences the behavior of an individual. Both agree that the changes occur as a result of a form of adaptation or a way of coping with the psychological conflicts created by the anxieties in mind. Freud uses the association between the id, ego, and the superego in illustrating how they tend to interact to cope with the changes brought about by anxiety in one's psychology. Horney, on the other hand, uses the analogy of a child to illustrate how the environment causes stressors that could potentially lead to anxiety and destroy the previous healthy relationship one had with their surrounding as a culmination of negative coping mechanisms. Therefore, the psychoanalytic concept assesses the etiology of anxiety through analyzing the conflict within an individual and how they tend to cope with it hence leading to a new personality.
References
Ewen, R., & Ewen, R. B. (2014). An introduction to theories of personality . Psychology Press.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (2013). Psychoanalytic studies of the personality . Routledge.
Fenichel, O. (2014). The psychoanalytic theory of neurosis . Routledge.
Lader, M. (2015). Generalized anxiety disorder. In Encyclopedia of Psychopharmacology (pp. 699-702). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Nieuwenhuys, A., & Oudejans, R. R. (2012). Anxiety and perceptual-motor performance: toward an integrated model of concepts, mechanisms, and processes. Psychological Research , 76 (6), 747-759.
