However, my qualifications are clearly not. those of a historian, who is properly concerned with documentation derived from primary data. Primary data consist of documents, records, notes, reports, data, clinical records, hospital charts, church dossiers, tax receipts, artifacts, etc, produced during the historical period in question. Skilled comparative evaluations yield relatively firm inferences, which nevertheless are often controversial and open
to “revisionism.” #PFT�� molecular weight keyword# In psychiatry, much early theorizing derives from anecdotal case reports that often, as Freud noted, read like novelistic fiction. Unfortunately, that resemblance is more than superficial. Proper historical studies of primary data have shown that many reports were not. only literally fiction in terms of clinical description, but also, more poignantly, in terms of clinical successes that apparently validated innovative therapeutic techniques and novel, insightful theories. Of particular note are the hospital records Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of Anna O., Freud’s actual clinical notes on the “Rat. Man,” Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and the Freud-Fliess correspondence. These
primary sources stand in stark contradiction to published reports. Further skepticism is warranted by the problematic evidence for “allegiance effects,” where an investigator’s investments closely parallel their findings. Therefore, critical skepticism is necessary. My understanding of historical developments derives from two sources – personal experiences and studies – amplified by reading papers and summary accounts Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical at some
remove from primary data. This requires an informal essay rather than a detailed footnoted and referenced thesis. Therefore, these historical notes on anxiety are quite personal, emphasizing influences that affected my understanding of that, important, ambiguous term. Hopefully, some inferences are justified. Anxiety The term “anxiety” is part, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of common language, referring to common experience, but also refers because to pathological states that, bear a confusing resemblance to fear and depression (which are also ill-defined lay terms). A chronological history of the development of ideas about, anxiety may give a false impression of continuous cumulative development. As I understand it, different approaches achieved attention in almost direct proportion to the claims of therapeutic efficacy especially when enhanced by a persuasive explanatory theoretical framework that fits cultural expectations. Rather than cumulative clarification, there is a series of zigzags in perspective. Descriptions of fear and anxiety were common in classical literature, so that the passions received mythological expressions.