[HN Gopher] Anticipatory Anxiety
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       Anticipatory Anxiety
        
       Author : passing
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2024-06-13 18:01 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk)
        
       | yamrzou wrote:
       | https://archive.is/YrKBL
        
       | bigyikes wrote:
       | Last night I finished reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by
       | Viktor Frankl. A theme of the book is that a sense of
       | meaninglessness is often a driver of depression, and that it is
       | up to each of us to find our unique meaning of life in order to
       | become fulfilled.
       | 
       | He was fond of the Nietzsche quote: "he who has a why to live can
       | bear almost any how", and he supplements this idea with his
       | experiences in surviving Auschwitz and helping others in his
       | clinical work.
       | 
       | It wasn't a focus of the book, but he also specifically mentioned
       | helping clients overcome "anticipatory anxiety". For example, one
       | client was anxious about sweating too much in public, which would
       | cause him to sweat even more.
       | 
       | Frankl's solution was simple and ingenious: PARADOXICAL
       | INTENTION. Anxiety is a vicious loop, but one way to break out of
       | it is to willfully intend the thing which you fear. In the
       | client's case, he decided to intentionally try to sweat as much
       | as humanly possible. The paradox: he stopped sweating.
       | 
       | I guess my point is that the mental health epidemic described in
       | the article may be an epidemic of meaning, and also that titular
       | "anticipatory anxiety" is a cycle that can be broken.
        
         | sctb wrote:
         | > He was fond of the Nietzsche quote: "he who has a why to live
         | can bear almost any how", and he supplements this idea with his
         | experiences in surviving Auschwitz and helping others in his
         | clinical work.
         | 
         | It seems to me as though this "why to live" must transcend
         | one's own life in order to have this effect. From this
         | perspective, your epidemic of meaning might reflect a consensus
         | world-view which is overly individualized.
        
           | canuckthrow wrote:
           | Frankl is a glorified shitpost parroted by people who want to
           | sound enlightened anyway.
        
       | slibhb wrote:
       | The article focuses on over-parenting as a source of anxiety. I
       | think it's interesting how much this view has in common with
       | Freud.
       | 
       | According to Freud, people repress thoughts, memories, and
       | desires. This repression is necessary for people to live in a
       | modern, civilized context. But repression also causes negative
       | emotion, including anxiety. In Freud, parents are key to
       | initiating their children into repression. Over-parenting could
       | lead to overly repressed children, which could in turn cause more
       | anxiety.
        
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