death anxiety

emotional distress and insecurity aroused by reminders of mortality, including one’s own memories and thoughts of death (see also ontological confrontation). Classical psychoanalytic theory asserted that the unconscious cannot believe in its own death, therefore thanatophobia was a disguise for some deeper fear. Existentialists later proposed that death anxiety is at the root of all fears, though often disguised. A mass of research using self-report scales (see death-anxiety scales) suggests that most people have a low to moderate level of death anxiety. See also edge theory; terror management theory.

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Psychology term of the day

January 30th 2025

oceanic feeling

an expansion of consciousness beyond one’s body (limitless extension) and a sense of unlimited power associated with identification with the universe as a whole. According to psychoanalytic theory, this feeling originates in the earliest period of life, before the infant is aware of the outside world or the distinction between the ego and nonego. Oceanic feelings may be revived later in life as a delusion or as part of a religious or spiritual experience.