Anxiety as Imagination

Years ago I read, “Anxiety is just imagination.” As a psychologist, I initially dismissed the phrase, feeling a sense of disappointment. I know from my clinical training and practice that anxiety is an incredibly real and complex experience that affects millions of people worldwide. The phrase seemed to trivialize a painful human experience.

But for the next several days, my brain kept circling back to the phrase, and I challenged myself to give it another look. “Anxiety is just imagination.”