Emotional anguish is like a whirlwind that takes care of everything, does it imprison us from within, filling us with fear, anxiety, agitation and even indefinable sadness? It is a kaleidoscope of unwanted emotions that cause not only a characteristic psychological discomfort, but also physical symptoms that can become very limiting.
Byung-Chul Han, a well-known South Korean philosopher and essayist specializing in cultural studies, defines today’s world as the society of fatigue, if there is one thing that proliferates between us is anxiety and emotional distress. the cause of all this is in our culture of performance, in the virus that has inoculated us since childhood, that tries to guide us to success, to the high level of competition in almost every plan of our existence.
- Thus.
- In addition to the pressure of our environment to improve and succeed.
- We introduce ourselves very early into the culture of multitasking.
- We have to do many things at the same time and in a short time.
- It is the law of a jungle where not everyone survives or integrates effectively.
- Where it is common to get stuck in “anxiety”.
- The German term that evokes all the narrow.
- Oppressive and suffering.
“Anxiety, like other psychological states that cause suffering, such as sadness and guilt, constitutes a normative struggle of the essential human. ” – Mario Benedetti-
When we talk about emotional anguish, the same controversy always arises. Is anxiety the same as anxiety? Or are they two different psychological conditions? It must be said that not long ago it was better to philosophically leave the term anguish differentiating it from the clinical plane, we have, for example, Seren Kierkegaard, defining this dimension as the fear that we sometimes feel when we realize that our future is limited and that the quality of our life depends on our choices.
Sigmund Freud, on the other hand, differentiated?Realistic anxiety? Of “neurotic discomfort”, the latter being a pathological condition, something that departs from purely philosophical reflections. All this leads us to understand that, in essence, what it really is there are two types of discomfort, one that we might call existential and the other that, by itself, has well-defined characteristics and that, according to Diagnosis and Statistical Mental Disorders (DSM-V), usually appear as a symptom of various psychological disorders.
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Poets, writers and painters channel their anguish through art. However, most of them suffer from existential distress. This is a recurring feeling in human beings, as we rarely completely separate ourselves from all this understandable emptiness when we look at ourselves and our future. However, the moment this feeling, this emotion, blocks us and puts us in the corner of vulnerability, we must act.
Quoting Byung-Chul Han again, we are forced to live with uncertainty, and uncertainty is the direct trigger for emotional distress, so whoever believes that this condition is solved by drugs is wrong (as long as we are not facing an extreme case What we need is to learn to manage the whims of this society, to better face the unpredictable , to face with more resources what we cannot control.
To achieve this, we have different proposals. Approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and engagement therapy, or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can help. The benefit of these therapies is enormous. On the one hand, we can reduce and work on our anxiety, our negative thoughts, our unwanted emotions that block us. On the other hand, we will get to the root of the problem. We will change our vision of our environment to feel more autonomous and take responsibility in an increasingly complex and demanding world.