Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- May: Existential
Psychology
© The McGraw−Hill^357
Companies, 2009Chapter 12 May: Existential Psychology 351Anxiety
Philip was suffering from neurotic anxiety. Like others who experience neurotic anx-
iety, he behaved in a nonproductive, self-defeating manner. Although he was deeply
hurt by Nicole’s unpredictable and “crazy” behavior, he became paralyzed with in-
action and could not break off their relationship. Nicole’s actions seemed to engen-
der in Philip a sense of duty toward her. Because she obviously needed him, he felt
obligated to take care of her.
Before May published The Meaning of Anxietyin 1950, most theories of anx-
iety held that high levels of anxiety were indicative of neuroses or other forms of
psychopathology. Just prior to publishing this book, May had experienced a great
deal of anxiety while recovering from tuberculosis. He and his first wife and their
young son were basically penniless, and he was unsure of his own recovery. In The
Meaning of Anxiety,May claimed that much of human behavior is motivated by
an underlying sense of dread and anxiety. The failure to confront death serves as
a temporary escape from the anxiety or dread of nonbeing. But the escape cannot
be permanent. Death is the one absolute of life that sooner or later everyone must
face.
People experience anxietywhen they become aware that their existence or
some value identified with it might be destroyed. May (1958a) defined anxiety as
“the subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his [or her] existence
can be destroyed, that he can become ‘nothing’ ” (p. 50). At another time, May (1967)
called anxiety a threat to some important value. Anxiety, then, can spring either from
an awareness of one’s nonbeing or from a threat to some value essential to one’s ex-
istence. It exists when one confronts the issue of fulfilling one’s potentialities. This
confrontation can lead to stagnation and decay, but it can also result in growth and
change.
The acquisition of freedom inevitably leads to anxiety. Freedom cannot exist
without anxiety, nor can anxiety exist without freedom. May (1981, p. 185) quoted
Kierkegaard as saying that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” Anxiety, like dizzi-
ness, can be either pleasurable or painful, constructive or destructive. It can give peo-
ple energy and zest, but it can also paralyze and panic them. Moreover, anxiety can
be either normal or neurotic.
Normal Anxiety
No one can escape the effects of anxiety. To grow and to change one’s values means
to experience constructive or normal anxiety. May (1967) defined normal anxiety
as that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be
confronted constructively on the conscious level” (p. 80).
As people grow from infancy to old age, their values change, and with each
step, they experience normal anxiety. “All growth consists of the anxiety-creating
surrender of past values” (May, 1967, p. 80). Normal anxiety is also experienced
during those creative moments when an artist, a scientist, or a philosopher suddenly
achieves an insight that leads to a recognition that one’s life, and perhaps the lives of
countless others, will be permanently changed. For example, scientists who wit-
nessed the first atomic bomb tests in Alamogordo, New Mexico, experienced normal