Annihilation Anxieties are found most clearly in panic attacks, nightmares, psychic trauma, fulminating psychoses, life crises and temper tantrums. These catastrophic anxieties constitute the vocabulary of panic, psychic trauma and the other conditions just enumerated.
T he basic danger involves a threat to psychic survival, of the sense of self and the ability to function. Such apprehensions may be felt as a present menace or as an anticipation of an imminent catastrophe. The experience entails fantasies and/or feelings of helplessness in the face of inner and/or outer dangers against which the person feels he can take no protective action. Such anxieties are found across the psychopathological spectrum, and are especially consequential in all psychopathology beyond the neurotic range. Both descriptive features and therapeutic implications will be illustrated and explored. Case material will be provided by the instructor and invited from the class participants.
New developments regarding Annihilation Anxieties included in this course are:
· A detailed clarification of how Annihilation Anxieties can be seen to constitute a fifth
Psychic Danger, and how the inclusion of AA in the Danger Series increases the clinical usefulness of the psychoanalytic theory of anxiety;
· How a specification of the psychostructural component of Annihilation Anxieties compliments the fantasy content aspect that is usually found in the literature;
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·
· A further delineation and refinement of levels of AA described earlier (Hurvich, 1991);
· The relationship between Annihilation Anxieties and what I call the
Overwhelmed/Disorganized Syndromes referred to above;
A survey of 30 years of empirical research measuring AA.
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Week 1: Annihilation Anxieties as mental apprehensions/fantasies
 I will delineate seven interrelated Dimensions of Annihilation Anxieties and subdimensions (in parentheses). A key Dimension is of being Overwhelmed ((Smothered,
Flooded, Overstimulated, Loss of Control, Inability to Function). A second Dimension is of being Merged. (Devoured, Absorbed, Fused, Incorporated). A third is a fear or experience of being Fragmented (Falling Apart, Shattered, Disintegrated, Going Insane, Melting). A fourth, feeling Invaded (Intruded On, Penetrated, Persecuted/Tortured) A fifth, of being Abandoned
(Cast Out, Excluded, Rejected, Falling)A sixth is feeling Trapped (Cornered, Ensnared, Fenced
In, Confined, Blocked). And the seventh, feeling Destroyed (Killed, Immobilized, Poisoned,
Demoralized, Crushed) 
 Annihilation Anxieties Modified by Psychostructural Considerations. Major structural factors are the extent to which the apprehensions delineated above are Desymbolized or
Symbolized, Uncontrolled or Controlled, experienced as Intolerable or Tolerable, Disorganized or Organized, Somatized vs. De-somatized, reflect Primary Process or Secondary Process characteristics. And how much they demonstrate Reflective Awareness, Affect Tolerance,
Anger, Regression, Secondary Anxiety, Trust, and/or Assimilability of the Experience. And, are there indications of Arousal of Previous Disturbing Memories and Fantasies. And, apprehensions over Loss of Self and Inability to Function 
Readings:
Gediman, H. K. (1983). Annihilation Anxiety: The Experience of Deficit in Neurotic Compromise
Formation.
: 59-70.
Hurvich, M. (2003). The Place of Annihilation Anxieties in Psychoanalytic Theory.
:
579-616.
Hurvich, M. (2011). New Developments in the Clinical Application of the Annihilation Anxiety Concept.
In A. Druck, C. Ellman, N. Freedman, & A. Thaler (Eds.),
. London: Karnac.
Week 2: Instructor Clinical Case Illustrations
 Material from a range of patients in psychodynamic psychotherapy/ psychoanalysis will be presented to illuminate ways in which annihilation anxieties occur, clinically and how they may influence the clinical process. 
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Week 3: Annihilation Anxieties as formulated by key psychoanalytic theorists
 Here, there is a comparison and contrast of Freud’s Traumatic Anxiety, Klein’s
Psychotic Anxiety, Winnicott’s Primitive Agonies, Bion’s Nameless Dread and the views of other psychoanalysts who have described related apprehensions. The contributions of each of these theorists to the instructor’s formulation of Annihilation Anxieties will be highlighted. 
Readings:
Freud, S. (1933). “Anxiety [and the instinctual life] New Introductory Lecture # 32 .SE 22:
Bass, A. (1992). Psychotic Anxieties and Containment: A Personal Account of an Analysis with
Winnicott by Margaret Little.
:117-131.
Bion, W. R. (1962). A Theory of Thinking.
: 306-310.
Freud, S. (1933) Anxiety, in New Introductory Lectures.
: 5-182.
Klein, M. (1935). A Contribution to the Psychogenesis of Manic-Depressive States (Chapter
17). In
London: Delacourt Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965). Ego Integration in Child Development. In
(Chapter 4). NY: IUP.
Winnicott, D. W. (1974). Fear of Breakdown.
: 103-107.
Weeks 4 & 5: Levels of AA: Central Issues related to Psychic Trauma, Panic and Nightmares are here considered
 The features that distinguish levels of AA are the issues of subjective intolerability, obligatory efforts to escape those unbearable feelings, regression/disorganization in key ego functions, sense of self and levels of object relating. Components of reality testing such as reflective function and blurring of the distinction between past and present are found to varying degrees, as well as relative failures of integrative functioning. 
·
Readings:
Arvanitakis, K. et al. (1993). Early Sexual Abuse and Nightmares in the Analysis of Adults.
: 572-587.
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Blum, H. P. (1994). The Conceptual Development of Regression.
: 60-79.
De Masi, F.D. (2004). The psychodynamic of panic attacks.
: 311-336.
Hurvich, M. (2004). Psychic Trauma and Fears of Annihilation. In D. Knafo, (Ed.),
. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Krystal, H. (1978). Trauma and Affects.
: 81-116.
Mack, J. (1965) Nightmares, Conflict, and Ego Development in Childhood.
: 403-428.
Week 6 Major Defensive Efforts against Annihilation Anxieties
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Major Defensive Efforts
Regression of functioning
Dissociation/splitting
Encapsulation (Hopper)
Spatial Defenses
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Primitive Defenses More generally 
Readings:
Birksted-Breen, D. (1996). Phallus, Penis and Mental Space.
: 649-657.
Freedman, Hurvich, et al., (2011).
. London: Karnac.
Hopper, E. (1991). Encapsulation as a Defence Against the Fear of Annihilation.
: 607-
624.
Hurvich, M. (1991) Annihilation Anxiety : an Introduction. In H. Siegel, C. Barbanel, I. Hirsch, J.
Lasky, H. L. Silverman, & S. Warshaw (Eds.),
(pp. 135-154). New York: New York University Press.
Week 7: Annihilation Anxieties in Psychopathology
 I will review the clinical manifestations of annihilation anxieties in Psychotic conditions, Borderline levels of functioning, , Eating Disorders (Farber et al.), Perversions, and in the various Overwhelmed/Disorganized Syndromes (Panic, Nightmares, Psychic Trauma,
Temper Tantrums) 
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Readings:
Frosch, J. (1967). Delusional Fixity, Sense of Conviction, and the Psychotic Conflict.
:
475-495.
Farber, S.K., Jackson, C.C., Tabin, J.K. & Bachar, E. (2007). Death and Annihilation Anxieties in
Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, and Self-Mutilation.
,
: 289-305.
Williams, P. (224). Incorporation of an Invasive Object.
: 1333-1348.
Weeks 7 & 8: Matriculants Case Presentations (to be scheduled in advance)
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