I feel that Holden has a lot of anxiety because he is afraid to grow up. His nature of anxiety is he tries to avoid anything that makes him feel that he is getting older. Holden uses a lot of projection though out the book as one of his defense mechanisms. "If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me"(2). He says the movies are phony and so are the people that go to them. Even though he says this he goes to the movies and he has very strong feelings about them. Holden does many things to contradict himself throughout his story. Such as taking Sally to a play even though he says that he does not like them either. He doesn't want to become like this but he can't help it, which is why he tries to make it look like all the people around him are the phonies even though he is the biggest phony of them all. .
His dream of being a catcher in the rye is the most symbolic thing in this story. He has so much anxiety of growing up he wants to protect little kids from growing up. He explains being a catcher in the rye to Phoebe like this "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean except me. And I"m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff"(173). The cliff symbolizes the fall from childhood into adulthood. Holden wants to be the person who stops the children from becoming adults. He wants to protect the innocence of little kids just having fun playing a game. Holden has so much anxiety about growing up himself that he feels he is a lost cause and he might as well focus on the children. .
Holden uses a lot of reaction formation though out our sessions. He often focuses on innocence and childhood which is the opposite of what he fears, which is growing up. He says the only thing he likes is his dead brother Allie.
