Because the fight for decolonization is left to the Algerian rural masses, they remain in a perpetual state of anxiety which eventually spurs their physical fight against the French.  Although this anxiety powered spontaneity led to liberation at the local and eventually national level, their efforts in escaping cultural trauma in turn lead to psychological trauma that is experienced during France’s colonial presence, and even more-so after decolonization has been achieved. This is supported in “Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity,” as Alexander states that “the mechanisms associated with psychological trauma are intraphysic dynamics of defense, adaptation, and coping”. This signifies that the fight for decolonization is not only external, but also significantly internal and located in the minds of the Algerians. Alexander, in his article, also expands upon many of Freud’s fundamental principles that Fanon’s psychiatric expertise relies on. Freud explains anxiety that plagues the Algerians as “an emotional response to danger and threat” that is the atmospheric oppression that capitalistic France imposes on the Algerian nation. According to Freud, this anxiety can be expanded to include the guilt, shame, humiliation, disgust and anger that bombard the Algerian psyche.

Freud’s principles on anxiety help to further emphasize the psychological trauma that the Algerians face. He describes anxiety as “an inner language that serves to communicate between the perceptual apparatus and the adaptive apparatus” The perceptual apparatus is involved in the recognition of internal and external dangers, while the adaptive apparatus, better known as the psyche, is involved in mobilizing the threat response. This view on the anxiety process explains why the Algerians were forced to act by way of violence. The adaptive apparatuses of the Algerians were activated by the military violence, political oppression, and extreme poverty that was perceived as a result of French colonial presence.

In “Political violence, ethnic conflict, and contemporary wars: broad implications for health and social well-being,” Duncan Pedersen highlights the issue of psychological warfare, and the long-term mental health implications this has on a damaged and recovering nation. In this article, Pederson expands upon the stressors that lead to psychological warfare that parallel the physical and psychological warfare that ensued during colonialism, as well as the Algerian fight for decolonization. Pederson indicates that a major source of conflict in an indigenous nation is the obvious discrepancy in the population and access to resources. This is because capitalistic powers such as France control access to resources in Algeria, and exploit these resources for their own economic benefit, and will use physical violence in order to advance and protect their economic interests. The Manichean colonial world clearly exhibits this divide in
socioeconomic status between the French colonists and the native Algerian inhabitants. This capitalistic process of “globalization” which includes international trade aided by colonization diminishes the Algerians’ sense of identity, as they are constantly dehumanized through ontological and physical violence inflicted by the French. Only in violent opposition to the forces of globalization do the Algerians evolve a sense of national identity, but this comes at the cost of severe cultural trauma.
