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.
Contemplative psychology
The term Contemplative Psychology was coined by Han F. De Wit in 1991 when he, a theoretical psychologist at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, published his pioneering book "Contemplative Psychology." The goal of this project was to "establish a dialogue between contemplative psychology and academic psychology" (p. 233). As a first step Han did not offer a systematic contemplative psychology but rather he suggested a "framework in which a full-fledged contemplative psychology may be developed" (p. 3). Is this work he outlines the "contours and the view of contemplative psychology" (p. 4). As Han develops the concept, his first point is to illustrate "a position from which the 'excavation' and 'exposure' of the contemplative psychologies seems possible" (p. 115) and to "make explicit and clarify the nature and position of the psychological "know-how" that contemplative traditions contain" (p. 14) This implied a comparative study of different religious and contemplative traditions in the belief that there was enough in common between these traditions to make "the search for a general contemplative psychological perspective and approach" meaningful (p. 4).