įorty years later, in 1895, Sigmund Freud developed the term “anxiety neurosis,” first connecting it to the mere fact of being born. The rapid changes and the striving nature of modern American society were the clear conduits for neurasthenia. Beard attributed neurasthenia as the result of the overtaxed nervous system of individuals attempting to achieve more than what they could cope with. Beard identified neurasthenia as a “nervous exhaustion,” primarily affecting ambitious individuals from the middle and upper classes of urban America.
Twenty-five years later, in 1869, a young New York-based doctor, George Miller Beard, coined a new medical term: neurasthenia (from neuro for “nerve” and asthenia for “weakness”). From this point of view, anxiety could be presented as a “positive” emotion that can help humans to be more self-conscious and ethical in their decisions and actions. According to Kierkegaard, “The whole actuality of knowledge projects itself in anxiety,” and, ultimately, anxiety as a positive impulse has the strong capacity to steer humans towards ethical living, pulling them away from sin. So fluke through unflustered with full marks inĪt the beginning of our contemporary societies, Soren Kierkegaard in 1843 wrote his seminal book “The Concept of Anxiety.” Kierkegaard, with his sharp analytical mind, and ability to build from concepts of the initiator of modern philosophy (Immanuel Kant), recognizes anxiety as an expression of human freedom, of the self-awareness of our ethical choices. Our anxious hope with no household god or This is part of our special feature on Anxiety Culture.
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