The Meaning of Anxiety

All famous descriptions of anxieties are explored. This book is for the storm chaser of our inner selves. Like it or not, we're all living in a methaphorical Kansas. This book helps make sense out of our "real" environment. Sometimes one twister after another. Othertimes several mega-twisters all at once! A quote from P. 236 explains why my supervisor puts so much emphasis on logic and scientific method. When people subscribe to Theory X (the usual and sometimes necessary case), here's what's involved in terms of anxiety (heathly forms of it...apparently): "The psychological helplessness arising out of this contradiction often leads the individual to cling to the illusion of rational power under the 'anonymous authorities of public opinion,' 'science,' and so forth... THE ILLUSION OF RATIONALITY TEMPORARILY ALLAYS ANXIETY BY SUPPRESSING THE CONTRADICTIONS."

Reading this book helped change my life. It gave me a new insight into my own life and made me start looking at things rationally instead of through the tinted lense that is anxiety. The case-studies are mind-blowing and really help one understand the core emotions that underly all people. I have specific underlined passages I often refer back to and think to myself, "there is no other way to describe what the author is writing other than pure genius."

This scholarly yet extremely accesible study of anxiety--from philosophical, social, theological, literary, cultural as well as biological perspectives--was first published in 1950, and updated by May in 1977. It is still the widest-ranging, richest, most intelligent and insightful exploration of anxiety currently available in one volume. In this postmodern era of hyperbiologism (which presumes anxiety and other symptoms to hold only physical meaning) and resulting wildly popular pharmacological treatments for anxiety, May reminds readers that anxiety has much more than mere biochemical causes and physiological significance: anxiety, insists May, is not necessarily pathological, but rather, a meaningful, necessary, vital and ultimately inextricable aspect of human existence.

....and a penetrating look at the cultural and contemporary roots of the Age of Anxiety. One could wish books like this would be provided in courses that dwell only on the personal facets of what are now called anxiety disorders.

I read this this book a few years back when I was in the throes of my own, rather intense, "anxiety disorder." I read many books on anxiety during this period and found that most of them fit into one of two catagories. The first catagory is the "conquer anxiety disorder" type, which explain the disorder in psycho-medical terms and propose a number of techniques (including drugs in some cases) for alleviating the symptoms. Some of these I found helpful, but they give very little insight into the "root" of the disorder or its deep psychological causes. The other type of book, which is more rare, delves into the philosophical and psychological roots of anxiety. Rollo May's book fits into the later catagory. Rollo May was a student of Paul Tillich who wrote "The Courage to Be" which examines anxiety from an ontological and existential viewpoint. He had a lot of influence on May's thought. The Meaning of Anxiety is an in depth study of anxiety: what it is, where it comes from, what purpose it serves, and in some ways how to transcend it. This book gives real insight into anxiety. The major thinkers on anxiety tend to be existentialists like May, Tillich, and Kierkegaard. When you read their work you gain a much broader perspective on this thing called anxiety.