) Our pre-human primate ancestors were capable of identification with conspecifics, like are today great apes. 2) Evolution of that identification has generated in the mind of our ancestors an ancestral version of selfconsciousness where first elements of self-focus have increased and dramatized emotional experiences. 3) Identifications with suffering or endangered conspecifics have produced a huge anxiety increase. 4) That anxiety may have been unbearable to some primates who have rejected the evolution of identification (and with it ancestral self-consciousness). They may have found an ecological niche leading to today great apes. 5) Our pre-human ancestors may have limited that anxiety increase and taken advantage of that by developing performances that brought in evolutionary benefits (imitation, cooperation, communication, individuation, ToM,..) 6) These performances have produced new anxieties, partly limited with new evolutionary advantages. 7) Overall, anxiety management processes have created an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the evolution toward human self-consciousness, linking its nature to anxiety management. 8) Many human mental and behavioral characteristics can probably be related to anxiety management processes. * Human morality rooted in anxiety management. * Pascalian type diversions (for good or evil) to keep the mind away from too anxious mental states. * Neurosis, psychosis as unconscious escapes from too anxious mental states (relations with life/death drives). * Human sexuality developed during human evolution as a multidimensional escape from anxiety. * .... 9) These anxiety management processes are critical to human psychological well-being. Their dis-functioning can be source of mental disorders and illnesses. 10) Overall, the proposed evolutionary scenario positions anxiety management at the core of human mind and introduces new evolutionary links between the nature of self-consciousness and human mental health. 11) Evolutionary advantages that could be attributed to self-consciousness may come from the evolutionary engine based on anxiety management processes. 12) The scenario has been introduced in philosophy of mind (http://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3) but has not been so far explicitly part of primatology nor of psychology/psychiatry/ethics. More work is needed on these proposed evolutionary links between human mind and anxiety management. C. Menant December 2017 Evolutionary Scenario linking the Nature of Self-Consciousness to Anxiety Management (Dec 2017)