Exploring the phenomenological structure of existential anxiety as lived through transformative life experiences.

Publisher: Routledge Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 9212242 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1477-2205 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 10615806 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Anxiety Stress Coping Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 2005- : London : Routledge
Original Publication: Chur ; New York : Harwood Academic Publishers ; Reading, Berkshire, UK : Distributed by STBS Ltd., c1992-

Existentialism* ; Life Change Events*; Adult ; Anxiety ; Anxiety Disorders ; Humans

Objective: The purpose of this study is to offer a systematic phenomenological approach to explore existential anxiety, typically defined as the experience of becoming aware of the universal concerns including death, meaninglessness, freedom and loneliness. It focuses on in-depth exploration of Transformative Life Experiences (TLE), events which often induce radical and profound reorganization of one's life.
Method: Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 150 adults who self-identified and accounted for a TLE in their lives. Data analysis was guided by a hermeneutic phenomenology paradigm that postulates that people account for their experience within the four lifeworld existentials of temporality, spatiality, corporality (embodiment), and relationality.
Results: A heuristic model was developed as an attempt to bridge the gap between the theoretical notion of existential anxiety and how it is subjectively experienced by interviewees.
Conclusions: Implications of the model for further research and practice are discussed, particularly the ability to identify a dominant universal concern, even when implicit, based on an exploration of one's subjective account of TLE.

Keywords: Existential anxiety; hermeneutic phenomenology; transformative life experiences; universal concerns

Date Created: 20210503 Date Completed: 20220503 Latest Revision: 20220609

20240513

10.1080/10615806.2021.1921162

33938332