The psychology of anxiety: A phenomenological description.

Abstract

The psychology of anxiety continues to be debated by researchers, as well as therapists. By investigating it with phenomenological methods, I have been able to determine its three existential preconditions; the way in which an anxious situation announces a crisis of one's efforts to surpass one's unacceptable incompleteness; being anxious as being impeded, if not fundamentally blocked, and moving beyond being anxious as either ambivalently reaffirming the viability of the projects and relations in which one was already invested, or as transformatively accepting those projects and relations as fundamentally uncertain and hence, as open to future determination. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

The phenomenology of happiness: Stephen Strasser’s eidetic explication.

“…Human happiness must be complete” (p. 256). Yet, all happiness is rooted in an experience of incomplete completion, since a human life as such can never be totally and utterly “completed.” Happiness cannot be separated from what Fischer (1991) referred to as the essential incompleteness of human existence. There is no one experience of fulfillment within the flow of human living that can obviate the striving for fulfillment on an ongoing basis.…”

Becoming Enthusiastic About Learning for the First Time as a Child

“…Existential Precondition for the Emergence of the Phenomenon. Existentially speaking, the process of becoming enthusiastic about learning for the first time was a particular development in the participants' making strides against their essential incompleteness (Fischer, 1991). Framed in the context of the current research, this project was part and parcel of their involvement in formalized education.…”

Will and wish: An existential proposal to cope with anxiety.

“…In each situation, the person endows with meaning and values what is important according to their psychological structure-which includes cognitive and affective components, from which the interpretation and meaning of a situation or object arise. Romero (2008);Fischer (1985, 1988, 1989, 1991), and Riemann (1996 supported this when they affirmed that anxiety is the product of possibilities and the uncertainty inherent to the future.…”

“…This existential proposal facilitates a nonjudgmental attitude toward bodily felt sensations in the process of identifying and dealing with the present experiences and meanings. Relating to what the person’s body is conveying is a way to relate with their experience and thus becomes a way to be aware of the actuality of the individual’s anxiousness and its significations (Fischer, 1991). In this sense, this existential proposal could help people to go deeper in the process of receiving, describing, and accepting their wishes, identifying the meaning implied in those wishes, clarifying which of those wishes the person identifies with, and finally, facilitates a way of directing will to affirm or preserve those wishes the person identifies with.…”