Anxiety had a fundamental influence on the birth of psychoanalysis. Despite the fact that thinkers before Z. Freud realized the importance of the phenomenon of anxiety, it was Z. Freud who introduced this problem into the context of science, denoting it “a fundamental phenomenon and the central problem of neurosis”[1]. Generally speaking, anxiety as an affective disorder is a feeling of anticipation of a dreary or dangerous situation that is subjectively anticipated or actually exists [2]. S. Freud's work "Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety" (1920) is one of the most voluminous, including ten chapters with additions, in which S. Freud tries to define the concept of anxiety as a generation of affect, which has its "actual place" in the Ego. In the article he defines anxiety with the German word Angst. "Angst" is a word widely used in German speech, and its use is not limited to psychiatric and psychological terminology. In the article, anxiety describes a real object from the Id, "transformed" into danger by the Ego. , a person experiences a vague, objectless feeling of melancholy and danger. “So, first of all, anxiety is something tangible. We call it an affective state, although we do not know what affect is and what can be hidden under it. As a feeling, anxiety has the obvious character of displeasure. but its quality does not end there; we cannot call every displeasure anxiety. There are other sensations with the character of displeasure (tension, pain, sadness), and in addition to this quality of displeasure, anxiety must also have other properties.”[3]. By “other properties” the author means the bodily manifestations of anxiety - sweating, tachycardia, muscle tension, etc. Depending on the source, S. Freud identifies three types of anxiety: neurotic anxiety, if the danger comes from the id; moral anxiety, if the danger threatens the Superego; real anxiety if the subject is faced with external danger. But whatever the sources, according to S. Freud, anxiety arises automatically when the psyche is overloaded with an influx of stimuli that is impossible to cope with, resulting in mental trauma. The prototype of such a traumatic situation is birth trauma. This type of traumatic anxiety is characteristic of early childhood due to the immaturity of the ego, but can also be present in adulthood in the case that S. Freud called actual anxiety neurosis. He gives an example of Otto Rank's theory of “Birth Trauma,” which states that any experience of anxiety repeats the trauma of birth and the passage of a born child through the birth canal and the experiences of affects associated with this process. Discussing the theory of O. Rank, S. Freud rethinks the interpretation of birth trauma. He agrees with the relevance of birth trauma, but at the same time insists that birth trauma is not the cause of subsequent neuroses; rather, it is the prototype of all subsequent anxiety states. The author draws attention to three factors that must be taken into account in order to take into account the theory of birth trauma and its connection with anxiety. First, the biological factor: a long period of time during which the infant is in a state of helplessness and dependence creates the preconditions for the emergence of initial feeling of danger associated with the fear of losing an object. For example, the departure of the mother or caregiver signals the danger of death, and the infant becomes defensive by crying in an attempt to return the attachment figure. “The traumatic situation of mother absence is different from the traumatic situation of birth. There was no object then that could disappear. Anxiety remains the only reaction that took place. Since then, repeated situations of satisfaction have created an object in the person of the mother, which, in the event of a need, causes an intense influx of feelings that deserve the name “longing” [4]. Another reaction to the loss of an object- sadness that arises under the influence of the demand for separation from the object, in which attachment to the object must be destroyed. I would like to dwell a little on the idea that Freudian anxiety is associated with loss, i.e. the absence of something significant, necessary, good. But as you know, nature does not tolerate emptiness, and the absence of something good in the intrapersonal space is equal to the presence of something bad - an attacking or pursuing object. Perhaps the reason for such a blind spot in Freud's thinking lies in his personal relationship with his mother. Reading his biography, you can’t help but think that he was never able to overcome the idealization of his mother: “a mother’s boundless satisfaction is brought only by her relationship with her son; on the whole, they are the most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships. A mother can pass on to her son the ambitions that she has been forced to suppress in herself, and she can expect from him to satisfy whatever remains of her masculinity complex.”[5] His words indicate that he never accepted the suppressed hatred and rage towards his apparently narcissistic mother, protecting her as an exclusively good object. The difficulty of separation from the mother is indirectly indicated by his irrational fear of hunger and poverty, characteristic of the oral-receptive personality. Since the security of such a person is based on the confidence that the mother will feed, care, love and admire, his fears are associated precisely with the possibility that this love will dry up. In a letter to Fliess, S. Freud wrote: “on the whole - with the exception of one weakness, my fear of poverty - I have too much common sense to complain.” At the same time, the image of a bad persecuting mother many years earlier presented work on anxiety was explored in the works of K. Abraham. In particular, in his analysis of the Italian artist G. Segantini, whose works very noticeably reflect negative feelings towards the maternal object. And further, the study of infantile rage, envy, greed towards the mother's breast is developed in the works of M. Klein, W. Bion. This is important to take into account in practical work; anxiety does not always hide trauma and pain as such; it includes acute and strong feelings caused by trauma, which are experienced as dangerous for the object. But let's return to the factors. The next factor associated with anxiety neurosis is phylogenetic, which stems from the development of libido and does not have a stable development from birth to adulthood, since most of the instinctive demands of infant sexuality are suppressed as dangerous to the Ego. It represents the ability to attract and receive love and attention from a loved one. S. Freud associates the fear of losing love with castration anxiety. In case of unsuccessful living of the oedipal phase, later sexual impulses of puberty, which in the natural course of things would be ego-syntonic, run the risk of succumbing to the attraction of their infantile prototypes and also being suppressed. The third - psychological factor, considers anxiety as a defect of the mental apparatus, which is connected precisely with its differentiation into Id and Ego. In view of the danger of reality, the Ego is forced to defend itself against certain instinctive impulses in the Id. But it cannot protect itself from inner instinctual dangers as effectively as from some part of reality that is not part of itself. Being closely connected with the id, such as it is, it can protect itself from instinctual danger. However, by suppressing such an impulse, the Ego gives up part of its organization, and the suppressed instinctual impulse becomes inaccessible to its influence. Frustrated sexual impulses may not disappear, but instead transform into neurotic symptoms. Freud believed that the development of symptoms, such as hysterical or conversion symptoms, occurs instead of satisfying frustrated sexual instincts. Suppression, however, is not always