Our Anxious Selves: Neuropsychological Processes and their Enduring Influence on Who We Are

Discussing the outsized role that fear, anxiety and other distressing emotions play in forming fundamental aspects of who we are.

Adverse experiences inevitably happen during development and childhood, and all adults—even high-functioning ones—carry with them childhood fears and anxieties. Growing neuropsychological data explains the ease with which fear and anxiety are activated, and the enormous power they have on the developing brain.

Using recent findings from neuropsychology, Our Anxious Selves shows that who we are psychologically starts with the early presence of an easily aroused fear/anxiety system. It goes on to discuss how clinicians can view people’s difficulties with self-confidence, how identity and self-destructive patterns can be traced back to these systems, and what clinicians can do to help. It also touches on intergenerational transmission of trauma, people’s responses to COVID-19, PTSD, and real and imagined threats.