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God and Ontological Anxiety

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The Discovery of God

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Psychology ((BRIEFSPSYCHOL))

Abstract

With the disappearance of the tail in the evolutionary process along with the gradual appearance of greater cortical development, the thinking brain became also an ontological one. That is, Homo sapien of course retained its animal concern with survival but added to its existential awareness, that of an expectation and tension about death. And from this knowledge and expectation of the certainty of one’s ultimate demise was born what became known as “ontological anxiety,” defined as an existential concern regarding one’s “being” (Kellerman, 2009a)—a concept philosophically discussed by Kierkegaard and also psychologically elaborated by Rollo May (1950, 1983).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society and Private Practice, New York, NY, USA

    Henry Kellerman

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  1. Henry Kellerman
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Kellerman, H. (2013). God and Ontological Anxiety. In: The Discovery of God. SpringerBriefs in Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4364-3_2

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