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No concept is more central to psycho‐analytical theory than the concept of anxiety. Yet it is one about which there is little consensus of opinion, which accounts in no small measure for the divisions between different schools of thought. Put briefly, all analysts are agreed that anxiety cannot be explained simply by reference to external threat: in some way processes usually thought of as internal and instinctive seem to play a crucial role. But how these inner forces are to be conceptualized and how they give rise to anxiety, that has always been the puzzle.

As a result of this state of affairs we find, when we come to consider how analysts conceive separation anxiety, some widely differing formulations; for each formulation is strongly influenced by the particular outlook regarding the nature and origin of anxiety which the analyst happens to have. Moreover, the place given to separation anxiety within the wider theory of anxiety varies greatly. For some, like Hermann and Fairbairn, separation anxiety is the most important primary anxiety; for others, like Freud in both his earlier and later work, it is only the shortest of steps removed from being so; for others again, like Melanie Klein and her associates, separation anxiety is deemed to be secondary to and of less consequence than other and more primitive anxieties. This being the present state of thought, inevitably the discussion has to touch on all aspects of the theory of anxiety. Yet it will be my plan to restrict the wider discussion as far as possible in order to concentrate on the task in hand, namely to understand separation anxiety and its relation to mourning.

A review of the literature shows that there have been six main approaches to the problem of separation anxiety; three of them are the counterparts, though not always the necessary counterparts, of theories regarding the nature of the child’s attachment to his mother. In the order in which they have received attention by psycho‐analysts, they are: –

1 The first, advanced by Freud in Three Essays (1905), is a special case of the general theory of anxiety which he held until 1926. As a result of his study of anxiety neurosis (1894) Freud had advanced the view that morbid anxiety is due to the transformation into anxiety of sexual excitation of somatic origin which cannot be discharged. The anxiety observed when an infant is separated from the person he loves, Freud holds, is an example of this, since in these circumstances the child’s libido remains unsatisfied and undergoes transformation. This theory may be called the theory of Transformed Libido. It resembles in many ways the sixth main approach, which is the one adopted here.

2 The anxiety shown on separation of young children from mother is a reproduction of the trauma of birth, so that birth anxiety is the prototype of all the separation anxiety subsequently experienced. Following Rank ([1924] 1929) we can term it the Birth‐Trauma theory. It is the counterpart of the theory of return‐to‐womb craving to account for the child’s tie.

3 In the absence of the mother the infant and young child is subject to the risk of a traumatic psychic experience, and he therefore develops a safety device which leads to anxiety behaviour being exhibited when she leaves him. Such behaviour has a function: it may be expected to ensure that he is not parted from her for too long. I shall term this the Signal theory, employing a term introduced by Freud (1926) in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. It is held in three variants according to how the traumatic situation to be avoided is conceived. They are: (a) that the traumatic situation is an economic disturbance which is caused when there develops an accumulation of excessive amounts of stimulation arising from unsatisfied bodily needs; (b) that it is the imminence of a total and permanent extinction of the capacity for sexual enjoyment, namely aphanisis (Jones, 1927). (When first advanced by Jones as an explanation of anxiety, the theory of aphanisis was not related to the anxiety of separation; two years later, however, he sought to adapt it so as to fit in with Freud’s latest ideas). Finally (c), there is the variant proposed by Spitz (1950) that the traumatic situation to be avoided is one of narcissistic trauma. It should be noted that in the history of Freud’s thought the Signal theory stems from, and is in certain respects the counterpart of, the theory which explains the child’s tie to his mother in terms of secondary drive.

4 Separation anxiety results from the small child, owing to his ambivalence to his mother, believing when she disappears that he has eaten her up or otherwise destroyed her, and that in consequence he has lost her for good. Following Melanie Klein ([1935] 1952) we can call it the theory of Depressive Anxiety.

5 Following the projection of his aggression, the young child perceives his mother as persecutory: as a result he interprets her departure as due to her being angry with him or wishing to punish him. for these reasons whenever she leaves him he believes she may either never return or do so only in a hostile mood, and he therefore experiences anxiety. Again following Melanie Klein, this can be termed the theory of Persecutory Anxiety.

6 Initially the anxiety is a primary response not reducible to other terms and due simply to the rupture of the attachment to his mother. I propose to call it the theory of Primary Anxiety. It is the counterpart to theories which account for the child’s tie to his mother in terms of component instinctual responses. It has been advanced by James (1890), Suttie (1935) and Hermann (1936), but has never been given much attention in analytic circles.

The hypothesis I shall be adopting is the sixth, since it stems directly from my hypothesis that the child is bound to his mother by a number of instinctual response systems, each of which is primary and which together have high survival value. Soon after birth, it is held, conditions of isolation tend to activate crying and a little later tend to activate both clinging and following also; until he is in close proximity to his familiar mother – figure these instinctual response systems do not cease motivating him. Pending this outcome, it is suggested, his subjective experience is that of primary anxiety; when he is close to her it is one of comfort.

Such anxiety is not to be conceived merely as a ‘signal’ to warn against something worse (though it might subsequently come to have this function). Instead, it is thought of as an elemental experience and one which, if it reaches a certain degree of intensity, is linked directly with the onset of defence mechanisms. It is because of this, and because I wish to distinguish it sharply from states of anxiety dependent on foresight, that I have termed it Primary Anxiety.⁵

Although I believe states of primary anxiety due to separation to be among the most frequent and pathogenic of such states, it is postulated that primary anxiety will arise in other circumstances also – perhaps whenever any instinctual response system is activated but not terminated. Primary anxiety due to separation seems likely, therefore, to be but one example of a common condition. It has, however, several special features. Not least of these is its specially close linkage in infants and young children to the experiences of fright and fear. When frightened, infants and young children look to their mother for security and if they fail to find her are doubly upset: both comfort and security are missing.

It is interesting, though by no means easy, to compare the theory of primary anxiety with Freud’s two theories. The similarity to his original one of Transformed Libido is close. Although on occasion Freud spoke as though libido could only be transformed into anxiety after it had first been repressed, this does not appear to be basic to his formulation. Indeed, in his discussion of the conditions which lead anxiety to become pathological the process inculpated is repression (Freud, 1909, p. 26); in the absence of repression, we may therefore infer, there would still be anxiety, but it would be within normal limits. If this is a correct reading, then the main difference appears to be that, whereas in the theory advanced here primary anxiety is an immediate consequence of the persistent activation without termination of certain instinctual response systems, in Freud’s theory anxiety is conceived as being the result of a ‘transformation’ which the libido undergoes.

The theory of primary anxiety appears to differ more from Freud’s second theory, that of Signal Anxiety, than from his first. The principal difference here is that Freud postulates that a fairly complex process of motor learning must have occurred. The other difference, though it is not logically necessary for his position, is that he postulates also some awareness in the infant of causal relationships. The theory advanced here on the other hand makes no such assumptions and, instead, sees the anxiety as primitive and dependent only on simple orientational learning. Nevertheless, it must be remembered, Freud also postulated the existence of a primitive biologically based anxiety which is evoked by separation, and it is therefore useful to compare the two views. In Freud’s theory this primitive anxiety is conceived as resulting from the instincts serving the infant’s bodily needs, e.g. for food, becoming active and not being satisfied: in the theory here advanced it is conceived as resulting from the instinctual response systems underlying attachment behaviour (notably crying, following, and clinging) becoming activated and remaining so. Thus in both cases the primitive anxiety is conceived as resulting from instinctual systems which, whilst gratified by the mother’s actions or presence, remain ungratified in her absence; or, in terms of the conceptual framework used here, from instinctual responses which, whilst terminated by the mother’s actions or presence, remain unterminated in her absence. The essential difference therefore lies in the nature of the instinctual systems postulated as being involved.

At first sight the theory of primary anxiety may also seem to have something in common with the Birth Trauma theory. For instance, some might argue that, if anxiety is experienced at birth, it is no more than one example of primary anxiety arising from separation. However, this seems to me improbable since, like Freud (1926, pp. 130–131), I am not satisfied that true separation anxiety is present in the earliest months.⁶ The birth trauma theory is not regarded as having explanatory value.

Whilst the theory of primary anxiety postulates that separation anxiety is itself an unlearnt and biologically based anxiety, it is far from blind to the existence and pathogenic importance of anxieties which are dependent on learning and anticipation. In the human it seems useful to distinguish at least two main forms of anticipatory behaviour – that based on primitive forms of learning, such as conditioning, and that based on memory organized by means of symbols. As soon as infants can be conditioned, which is very early, they can acquire a simple form of anticipatory behaviour and, in so far as the events to which they are conditioned are disagreeable, such for example as pain, hunger, or lack of human contact, they may be supposed to experience anxiety. This I shall term Conditioned Anxiety. Cognitively, it is still rather a primitive form of anxiety and in many ways more closely resembles primary anxiety than the form next to be described. Later, when the infant develops his capacity for using symbols and can thereby construct a world of objects existing in time and space and interacting causally, he is able to develop some measure of true foresight. Should the foreseen events be of a kind he has learned are disagreeable, he will once again experience anxiety. This I shall term Expectant Anxiety. Once this level of psychic organization is reached many kinds of danger, real and imaginary, may be foreseen and responded to. For example, whatever may occur at more primitive levels, at this level both persecutory and depressive anxieties play a crucial role; for anything which leads the child to believe he either has destroyed or alienated his mother, or may do so, cannot fail to exacerbate his expectant anxiety of temporary or permanent separation.

It is to be noted that originally the theories of persecutory and depressive anxiety were advanced by Melanie Klein independently of the problem of separation anxiety; and that, moreover, persecutory and depressive anxieties are conceived by her as existing, initially at least, in very primitive form either from birth or from the earliest weeks. Their manifestations at a higher level of psychic organization, she holds, are to be understood as stemming from these primitive roots. I remain sceptical of this view. It is therefore necessary to emphasize that such formulations are not indispensable to the concepts of persecutory and depressive anxiety: there is no need for their role at a higher level of psychic organization to be conceived as stemming from more primitive roots. That they play an immensely important role in the more developed psychic organizations, not least in exacerbating separation anxiety and raising it to pathological levels, there can be no doubt. In this paper, therefore, persecutory and depressive anxieties will be treated as of major consequence in the elaboration of separation anxiety at a higher level of psychic organization, whilst leaving as an open question their existence and role at a more primitive level.⁷