Ansiedade na modernidade : diálogos a partir da psicologia existencial de Rollo May

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the phenomenon of anxiety in contemporaneity from the propositions and research carried out by the existential psychotherapist Rollo May. The contributions of this American psychotherapist are put in contact with the analysis of the modernity of the philosopher Marshal Berman, weaving considerations about the relationship between anxiety and social and cultural factors. The connection between the phenomenon of anxiety and the establishment of social, economic and cultural relations characteristic of the way of life of the modern human being is emphasized. May defines anxiety as a constituent element of existence. He differentiates this (healthy) anxiety from the pathological one, when there is impairment in the subject's way of existing. Pathological anxiety occurs when there is an intrapsychic conflict that affects the essence of personality, in which the individual lies between the possibility of being and the possibility of non-being, moving away from his creative capacity and from his own self.