ACUTE ANXIETY

C.

Acute Anxiety

     As the term implies, acute anxiety is usually sudden in onset and occurs in attacks. These may last for only a few moments, and disappear without major sequelae, or they may continue with waxing and waning intensity for many minutes or hours at a time. In some, the attack is an isolated episode that occurs rarely if ever again; in others, a series of attacks may occur in cycles lasting for days or weeks. Generally, the patient is unable to specify any precipitant of his symptoms, though in some a clue is provided from their associations, if one allows them to talk freely about the experience. In this connection, mention should be made here of one special form of anxiety that is encountered with some regularity and frequency, the so-called homosexual panic. Occurring usually in late adolescent or young adult males, often at a time when they are first exposed to the intensive contact with other males, such as exists in army barracks, male dormitories, or camps, homosexual panic is characterized by particularly severe anxiety associated with the idea that one may be homosexual or that other people think so. Those afflicted with this condition may verge on being delusional, are at times strongly impelled to suicidal [or homicidal - jmm.] acts, and are frequently driven by the emotional pain of their symptoms to seek medical help, especially in general hospital emergency wards.

[ John C. Nemiah, "Anxiety: Signal, Symptom, and Syndrome," in the "American Handbook of Psychiatry. Second Edition. Silvano Arieti, Editor-in-Chief. Volume Three. / Adult Clinical Psychiatry. Silvano Arieti and Eugene M. Brody, Editors." -- Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. New York. 1974, p. 95. ]