Educating Anxiety

Mark Freeman is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society Emeritus, Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, USA, and is also Senior Fellow in the Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics at Boston College.Peter Joseph Fritz is Professor and Edward Bennett Williams Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, USA.

‘Anxiety is everywhere, from the pathological anxiety that burdens so many individuals to the ordinary, existential anxiety that conditions our shared human experience. Recognizing that modern clinical and cultural paradigms too often relegate our worry to the discipline of psychology alone, this multi-disciplinary volume brings philosophy, theology, and psychology together to enrich our understanding and broaden care for all who live with this reality. The book’s focus on anxiety among college students––a population experiencing it at startling rates––occasions insights that will challenge and inspire readers concerned with anxiety in and beyond higher education.’Jessica Coblentz, PhD, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College and author of Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression ‘In an age intoxicated by the fantasy of perpetual happiness, this book reminds us that anxiety is not an aberration of the human condition, but one of its most revealing articulations. Rather than a malady to be cured or disquiet to be silenced, anxiety is a morally instructive summons toward meaning, toward responsibility, toward ethical encounter, and toward the work of becoming. Anxiety, properly understood, alerts us to the goods we value and commitments we are called to make amidst life’s inescapable uncertainty. Resisting the pull of shallow currents, the authors of this volume refuse the simplicities of symptom and cause, illness and wellness. Instead, they turn to deeper waters. By reclaiming anxiety as a site of freedom and existential awakening, Educating Anxiety offers an emancipatory rethinking of educational life capacious enough to honour suffering while making room for enlightened possibilities beyond conventional clinical and instructional regimes. The book stands as a richly conceived, humane, and timely contribution to debates about student flourishing and educational purpose in contemporary institutions of higher learning.’Jeff Sugarman, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, and co-author of Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency‘According to the official story, psychology is a freestanding empirical discipline founded in the late 19th century. In fact, we have been assiduously working out the logic (logos) of the soul (psyche) for millennia, doing so through philosophical and theological inquiry, the arts and literature, and conversation (including the special form of conversation that is psychodynamic talk therapy). This rich and singular book offers hope that we may be finding our way back to a humane and capacious psychology. Anxiety is the perfect focus for such a project. Instead of rushing to diagnosis and treatment, the authors linger on the meaning of anxiety in our lives, whether in pandemics, personal crises, or the high-stakes credentialing game we call college. Without denying the real suffering involved, they explore how anxiety can occasion a profound education, opening us to ourselves and others. Here is a book that leads psychology out of the DSM and back into the formative spaces where we struggle to make sense of our lives, where we strive to see ourselves and our prospects honestly and non-reductively.’Chris Higgins, Professor and Chair, Department of Formative Education at Boston College, and author of Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education