grasping the theory to be advanced it is vital to distinguish sharply between the concept of self‐preservation and that of species survival: probably all biologists would regard the first, when conceived as an ‘instinct of self‐preservation’, as one of the most influential of misleading theories, the second as one of the most pregnant concepts in the history of biology. The notion of an instinct of self‐preservation posits a force or set of forces which is designed to ensure that a particular individual is preserved. The notion of species survival, which stems from evolution theory, points on the other hand to the fact that any biological character which is advantageous to the species tends to be perpetuated (through processes of natural selection and heredity), whilst any that are not so advantageous tend, over the course of generations, to be dropped out. It is true that often what is advantageous for the species is also advantageous for the individual; but there is no guarantee of identity of interest, and where they conflict it can be that it is the interests of the individual which go to the wall. That anatomical and physiological characteristics are subject to this rule has long been recognized. The conspicuous plumage of many birds, which is indispensable to their success in mating, may be most disadvantageous to their safety. The interests of individual survival are sacrificed; the interests of species propagation are paramount. That psychological characteristics are subject to the same law has, thanks largely to the superficial plausibility of the self‐preservation theory, been slow to be appreciated. Yet it is clear that all psychological characteristics which have been developed because of their species survival value must be so subject, and these must include any characteristics to which the term instinctual is applied. For these reasons, in discussing the theory of anxiety and fright reactions, no references will be made to the concept of self‐preservation. Instead we shall be thinking in terms of species‐specific behaviour patterns, or instinctual response systems as I prefer to call them,8 which are present because of their survival value to the species and which operate, at least initially, in the blind and automatic way regarded by Freud as characteristic of the id.
In the previous paper I described some of the characteristics of what I termed instinctual response systems which are to be culled from the recent work of ethologists: ‘The basic model for instinctive behaviour is thus a unit comprising a species‐specific behaviour pattern (or instinctual response) governed by two complex mechanisms, one controlling its activation and the other its termination. Although sometimes to be observed active in isolation, in real life it is usual for a number of these responses to be linked together so that adaptive behavioural sequences result.’ I proceeded to consider ‘how as humans we experience the activation in ourselves of an instinctual response system’. When the system is active and free to reach termination, it seems, we experience an urge to action accompanied, as Lorenz (1950) has suggested,9 by an emotional state peculiar to each response. There is an emotional experience peculiar to smiling and laughing, another peculiar to weeping, yet another to sexual foreplay, another again to temper. When, however, the response is not free to reach termination, our experience may be very different; we experience tension, unease, anxiety. It is this line of thought I wish to pursue.
The hypothesis advanced is that, whenever an instinctual response system is activated and is unable for any reason to reach termination, a form of anxiety results. The blockage may be of many different kinds. In some cases the environment may fail to provide the terminating conditions, as for example when there is sexual arousal in the absence of an appropriate partner. In other cases two or more instinctual responses may be active but incompatible, for example, attack and escape. In other cases again, the blockage may be associated with fear or guilt, or some deeper inhibition. No doubt the particular form of blockage will influence outcome; here, however, I wish to emphasize only the common feature. No matter what the nature of the blockage, it is postulated, if an instinctual response system is activated and unable to reach termination, changes occur both in behaviour (namely in psychological and physiological functioning) and also in the subjective experience of the individual himself. When it rises above a moderate level it gives rise to the subjective experience of anxiety. To distinguish it from other forms of anxiety I am terming it primary anxiety.
Whether in fact every kind of instinctual response system which is active and unable to reach termination is accompanied by primary anxiety needs further exploration. So too do the behavioural accompaniments of anxiety. Both the physiological and the psychological components seem likely to be in large part unlearnt and thus in some respects to resemble instinctual responses. The psychological components are of course of great consequence for psychoanalysts; since, however, they are intimately related to defence mechanisms, it will be best to postpone a discussion of them until a later paper.
Let us now consider fright. Fright, it is suggested, is the subjective experience accompanying at least two related instinctual response systems – those leading on the one hand to escape behaviour, and on the other to alert immobility or ‘freezing’. It is to be noted that as so defined it does not presuppose any conscious awareness of danger. Instead, it is conceived as being the accompaniment of certain instinctual response systems whenever they are activated. Like all instinctual response systems, those governing escape and ‘freezing’ are conceived as systems built into the organism and perpetuated by heredity because of their survival value. it is possible that there are more than two kinds of instinctual response systems associated with fright, but, since they do not form the subject of this paper, this possibility will not be explored.10
Unlike some response systems, such as those relating to sexual behaviour which are sometimes activated by purely internal changes, the systems governing escape and ‘freezing’ seem almost invariably to require some external condition for their activation. Amongst those to which they appear to be naturally sensitive are loud noises, sudden visual changes (e.g. fast‐moving objects), extremes of temperature, physical pain, and mere strangeness.11 At this elemental level of instinctual behaviour, the individual does not structure his universe into objects interacting causally to produce situations, some of which are expected to prove dangerous and others harmless. On the contrary, so long as he is operating on this level his responses are rapid and automatic. They may or may not be well adapted to the real situation. The individual flees or remains immobile not because he has any clear awareness of danger but because his flight or ‘freezing’ responses have been activated. It is because the response is automatic and blind that I regard the term ‘fright’ as better than ‘fear’ to denote its subjective accompaniment. (The word ‘fear’, it is suggested in the Appendix, may most conveniently be limited to denote the subjective state accompanying escape and ‘freezing’ whenever the cognitive component of these responses is at a higher level, namely whenever there is a clear conception of what object it is which has activated them.)
Thus far in our analysis primary anxiety and fright, though having in common the character of being automatic and blind, are conceived as very different states. Whereas primary anxiety is the subjective accompaniment of many, perhaps all, instinctual response systems when impeded, fright is the accompaniment of a couple or so of related response systems when activated. In the infancy of many species, however, special conditions operate which lead to a close connectedness between the two which I believe to be of vital importance for understanding separation anxiety. This becomes clear as soon as we examine the situations which terminate escape responses,12 a matter usually given scant attention.
When the escape response of an animal is activated at only low intensity, mere removal from the activating conditions suffices to terminate it. This is no longer so when it is activated at high intensity. On such occasions in the natural environment animals escape not only from situations but to situations. A frightened rabbit bolts to its burrow, a fox to its earth, a band of baboons to their selected tree. Not until they have reached their preferred haven of safety do they rest. Burrow, earth, and tree
