The Specifically Human Dimension of Anxiety

An Existential-Phenomenological Account Grounded in the Structure of Possible Existence

Bibliographic Data

ID22411154
AuthorsFlorian A Gebler (0009-0009-9045-8835, Independent Researcher, Schwangau, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-05-19
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Humanistic Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-1678 • E-ISSN: 1552-650X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00221678261430962
OpenAlexW7161624603
LanguageEN
References cited34

Contemporary research on anxiety has focused on neurobiological and behavioral approaches that conceptualize anxiety as an evolutionarily developed protective system. In doing so, it has tended to marginalize dimensions of anxiety that concern the specifically human condition. Within the tradition of existential philosophy and psychology, anxiety has long been understood as an ontological feature of human existence. Building on Kierkegaard and Jaspers, the present article offers a systematic and integrative existential-phenomenological account of anxiety grounded in the structure of possible existence. The human being is understood as possible existence, which realizes itself only in its present enactment and is therefore continually exposed to the threat of non-being. From this perspective, existential anxiety is not a disorder but a signum of the human condition. This view opens an affirmative approach to anxiety: existential anxiety is distressing yet revelatory, functioning as a call to realize existence. It is therefore not something to be eliminated but integrated. The account is situated in relation to contemporary theory and research, and its implications for clinical practice are outlined.

Anxiety · Dimension (graph theory) · Distressing · Existentialism · Relation (database) · Situated · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Religious, Philosophical, and Educational Studies

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