Anxiety as the dizziness of freedom (Kierkegaard)
Kierkegaard's line that 'anxiety is the dizziness of freedom': vertigo felt not before a threat but before possibility, when you see that you could do anything, including what you shouldn't, and that the choice is yours. Like standing at a height, where part of the fear is that you might jump.
What drives it
It separates anxiety from fear: fear has an object, and this anxiety's object is your own possibility. It explains indecision that has nothing to do with missing information.
How it shows
Work
The founder after an exit, with unlimited options, who can't commit to anything. The executive offered three good roles who stalls for months. More data gathered after the decision is plain. Relief when someone else decides or a deadline forces it. 'I just want to keep my options open.'
Relationships
Can't commit to a partner or a city because commitment closes off other lives. Anxiety that rises at moments of freedom: an empty weekend, a sabbatical, retirement.
Self
Anxiety that rises as constraints fall away, and relief when a choice is taken from you.
What tells it apart
Generalised anxiety: Generalised anxiety worries about bad outcomes (health, money, safety); the dizziness spikes when the outcomes are good and many, and settles once options close.
Ambivalence: Ambivalence is being pulled two ways about one thing; the dizziness is about sheer openness, often with no strong pull in any direction.
Need for cognitive closure: People high in need for closure seize the first answer to end uncertainty; the dizzied person can't pick even when closure would relieve them, or picks and promptly reopens it.
A test
Narrow the options artificially (two choices, a deadline) and see whether the anxiety drops sharply; if it does, freedom rather than any particular risk was the problem.
Questions to carry
- When the options were narrowed to two with a deadline, how much did the anxiety drop?
- Which open choice in my life frightens me because I could do anything, including what I'd regret?
How strong the research is
clinical. An existential insight used by existential therapists (Rollo May, 1950; Irvin Yalom, 1980) but not measured directly; research on intolerance of uncertainty is solid, while the popular 'paradox of choice' effect proved small and inconsistent in meta-analysis (Scheibehenne and colleagues, 2010).
Where it comes from
Søren Kierkegaard (as Vigilius Haufniensis), The Concept of Anxiety, 1844
On the family tree: Søren Kierkegaard
Sources
- Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (1844)