[Panic disorders and agoraphobia: Freudian concepts and DSM IV]

This paper refers to the relationship between panic and agoraphobia, regarding Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia (DSM IV), from two different points of view coming from Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry. Psychoanalysis (S. Freud) considers agoraphobia as a defensive organization to avoid anxiety, not bound to the original conflict, but to substitutive formation. The exposure to space (its unconscious significance) provokes panic attack. The psychiatric approach considers agoraphobia, meaningless by its own, as a consequence of spontaneous panic attacks. The etiology is referred to neurophysiological mechanisms. The authors reviewd D Klein's hypothesis about panic and Freud's theories on anxiety, partiularly Anxiety Neurosis.