To the Editor:

“The Feel-Good Gene,” by Richard A. Friedman (Sunday Review, March 8), begins with an important recognition about the widespread occurrence of human anxiety that does not always have an identifiable psychological trigger. He suggests that those with a certain genetic mutation tend to be less anxious. Dr. Friedman then simply focuses on a few studies of certain biochemical aspects of anxiety relating to the experience of marijuana and other drugs.

Yet many of us who work in depth with people who, at least initially, “haven’t a clue why they feel distressed,” observe repeatedly that the diffuse, wordless experience of anxiety takes on identifiable form and meaning in the context of a human relationship — one that is dedicated to grasping the inner experience of someone suffering this kind of nameless terror.

Surely, it is not always or only specific childhood trauma that elicits our vulnerability to anxiety. Innate brain chemistry is not irrelevant. But existential anxiety — the haunting awareness of our mortality, our transience, the precariousness of many of our beliefs — is a major background factor in the suffering of many, if not all of us.

Because it is a pervasive, perhaps universal human experience does not mean that it cannot be transformed within a therapeutic relationship in which it is sufficiently understood, perhaps genuinely shared.