Recently – and I'm afraid I can't place the source right now – I came across the insight that anxiety is a refuge of Ego. In my own case it was the last free bastion for untrammeled egotism after I'd been able to leave my chronic depression behind. As with any mechanism of Ego, anxiety is great at deflecting attention from its root causes. The key is being able to interpret the language of projection and reversals common to all Ego's tricks.