Phobia, a Barrier Against Dread

After a survey of the most well-known phobia theories and the difficulties presented by this pathology, the author cites a clinical case study as the basis for a hypothesis that a specific affect, fright, underlies phobia. Fright, a component of what Jung called the “numinous”, is a vector of everything that is heterogeneous to the ego, the awareness, and the subject’s history. It thus follows that fright, as long as it is channeled, can be a differentiation factor. In the case reported, the effect of the therapy was to bare the dark side of the self which fright had served both to dissimulate and to express.