Hoch, P. H. (1950). Biosocial aspects of anxiety. In P. H. Hoch & J. Zubin (Eds.), Anxiety (pp. 105-116). New York City, NY, US: Grune & Stratton.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11273-006
In this symposium you will read many theories about the origins and manifestations of anxiety which obviously often contradict each other, since the problem has been investigated from all angles and not alone in one particular frame of reference. It is also obvious that the biologist, the animal experimenter, the social scientist, the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the psychoanalyst will have different points of view depending on their theoretical backgrounds. Often facts and observations in their respective fields are put into straitjackets based on theoretical preconceptions with each approach grouping facts about one central idea which should explain all, but, of course, does not. We also find generalizations arrived at by those who are familiar with only one particular form of anxiety, or with one particular method of allaying it, or with one method of investigating it. Today we know a great deal about where and when anxiety occurs, but we are still quite hazy as to how it originates and even what purpose it serves. Some believe that anxiety is a destructive force which leads to disorganization and even disintegration of an individual or a group; on the other hand, others stress the constructive connotations of anxiety in its pure or in its sublimated form. Some think that anxiety is secondary to an intraorganismic or interorganismic imbalance, being a symptom of a disturbed homeostasis in the organism due to conflicting drives within the individual and the environment; others support the point of view that anxiety itself is the cause of the disturbances we see in most neurotic and in some psychotic manifestations. Some believe that anxiety is the product of an organic process; others stress nearly exclusively its social origin assuming that it can only be understood in psychodynamic terms. We will return to these fundamental contradictions later on. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)