Primitive Anxieties

The Primitive Anxieties seminar series with Maria Rhode will take a close look at the many ways existential anxieties show themselves in human experience. These are the primitive, bodily-based fears linked to survival — sensations and states that often emerge before words, before thought, and sometimes even before a sense of self is fully formed. We will explore how these anxieties can be expressed through the body, behaviour, and early relational patterns, and how they may continue to influence emotional life long into adulthood.

A central theme of the series will be the way such anxieties can sit beneath a wide range of psychological difficulties. In children, they may appear through disturbances in feeding, sleeping, sensory processing, or early communication. In adults, they may underlie chronic states of dread, fragmentation, or a sense of being overwhelmed by experience. We will consider how these anxieties can become sealed off or “encapsulated” when they feel too threatening to approach — and how this defensive isolation can limit emotional growth.

We will also examine the therapeutic processes that allow these early anxieties to be gradually integrated into the personality. This includes the role of containment, attunement, and the development of symbolic capacity — the shift from raw, bodily fear to something that can be thought about, shared, and transformed. Throughout the series, clinical examples will help illustrate how integration becomes possible and how it can open the way to greater resilience, creativity, and emotional freedom.

Maria Rhode brings decades of experience to this exploration. She is Professor Emerita of Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic and the University of East London, a Member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, and a Child Analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Her work has been central in deepening our understanding of early emotional development, sensory experience, and the therapeutic encounter with primitive states of mind.