Discomfort Anxiety

Discomfort Anxiety vs. Ego Anxiety

Notes from the paper: Discomfort Anxiety: A New Cognitive-Behavioral Construct by Albert Ellis.

Discomfort Anxiety

I define discomfort anxiety as emotional tension that results when people feel that:

1. Their comfort (or life) is threatened.
2. They should or must get what they want (and should not or must not get what they don’t want).
3. It is awful or catastrophic (rather than merely inconvenient or disadvantageous) when they don’t get what they supposedly must.

Ego Anxiety

I define ego anxiety as emotional tension that results when people feel that:

1. Their self or personal worth is threatened.
2. They should or must perform well and/or be approved by others.
3. It is awful or catastrophic when they don’t perform well and/or are not approved by others as they believe they should be.

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Related: Low Frustration Tolerance