ABSTRACT
Affectivity is an important theme in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and his writings on intense and distressing attunements such as anxiety, despair, irony, and melancholy have had a significant impact upon existential philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry. What is less clear is whether or not Kierkegaard’s existential phenomenology of affectivity has any relevance for contemporary philosophy of psychiatry and psychology, in particular the ongoing attempt to understand the relationship between anxiety and depressive disorders. Among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, anxiety and depression are frequently comorbid, often concurrent, and demonstrate significant syndromal and symptomatic overlap, as well as emerging neurobiological correlations. And yet, clinical views on the utility of a discrete diagnostic category for ‘mixed anxiety and depression’ continue to be contentious. Focusing on Kierkegaard’s existential phenomenologies of anxiety and despair, the aim of this chapter is to consider what insights, if any, Kierkegaard might give us into understanding the relationship between anxiety and depressive disorders. First, I give a comprehensive reading of Kierkegaard’s companion treatises of anxiety and despair, which I will situate within his unique understanding of the existential structure of the human being. Second, I show that, if we strip Kierkegaard’s account of its normative interpretation and work with the ontological structure of affectivity, then his insights into anxiety, depression, and the reciprocal relationship between them become relevant to the contemporary philosophy of psychiatry and psychology in a novel and interesting way.
