Anxiety
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In "Art and Artist" (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation.
The Concept of Anxiety
Walter Lowrie translated "The Concept of Dread" in 1944. He was asked "almost petulantly" why it took him so long to translate the book. Alexander Dru had been working on the book and Charles Williams hoped the book would be published along with "The Sickness Unto Death", which Lowrie was working on in 1939. Then the war started and Dru was wounded and gave the job over to Lowrie. Lowrie could find "no adequate word to use for "Angst". Lee Hollander had used the word dread in 1924, a Spanish translator used "angustia", and Miguel Unamuno, writing in French used "agonie" while other French translators used "angoisse". Rollo May quoted Kierkegaard in his book "Meaning of Anxiety", which is the relation between anxiety and freedom.