Why Anxiety is Not a Disorder but a Creative Force

How the mainstream psychology pathologized a necessary part of our growth

The Scream by Edvard Munch

All anxiety starts off as normal, healthy, potentially constructive anxiety.

It’s our response to and relationship with it that turns it into neurotic anxiety - the problematic type of anxiety we today consider as the only kind.

Quite a strange, counterintuitive statement, I know. Especially since, in today's mental health discourse, anxiety is portrayed as a problem to be eliminated and nothing more. Allow me to explain this counterintuitive yet infinitely more human perspective.

Anxiety as a Gateway to Creativity

I recently shared a video on my Instagram of the great Rollo May explaining how anxiety is a call to creativity.

“What anxiety means is it’s as if the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety is, thus, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It’s what makes us human beings.”

This, unsurprisingly, attracted a lot of reactions.

As is always the case when I talk about the existential view of anxiety, and I’ve been doing it for years, a lot of people feel relieved. It gives them great reassurance to hear that anxiety isn’t a sickness but can, in fact, be a meaningful and constructive experience. Most of them already felt this on some level. Still, they lacked the conceptual framework to fully explore this idea in a culture where anxiety is predominantly viewed as pathological.

This resonates deeply with my own journey. I spent years believing I was broken until encountering the existential-humanistic tradition transformed my relationship with anxiety.

Some people were however confused by the idea of anxiety being a gateway into creativity. That’s what I want to address this time.

One person asked,

“How is anxiety about rejection in relationships or about going to meetings a call for creativity?”

Someone answered that it’s more of a “generalized anxiety” related to specific external events, while Rollo May was talking about a “metaphysical sort of anxiety that seems to arise from nowhere, without a direct correlating external event to point to.”

This response, although well-intentioned, can lead us further away from developing a healthier relationship with anxiety by presenting two seemingly unrelated types of it.

That’s why I want to explain how all anxiety starts as normal anxiety, even this “generalized” type.

Creativity Beyond Art

The trap we risk falling into is thinking that creativity means creating art. That’s why the person with no typical artistic hobbies might hear May’s explanation of anxiety as a gateway to creativity and feel it doesn’t apply to them. May must’ve been talking to the creatively talented folks, right? Wrong.

The creativity May was talking about is a way of existing in and engaging with the world. In “The Courage to Create,” he says that we must see creativity in a mother’s relationship with her child as much as in the work of scientists and artists.

If creativity is defined as bringing something into being, then every decision one makes is a creative act, as it shapes the person and their life.

Therefore, when May talks about anxiety as a gateway and call to creativity, it applies to every single human being.

Now, we can address how all anxiety, even the type related to relationships and other social situations, starts off as normal anxiety.

Normal vs Neurotic Anxiety

“Generally when the term "anxiety" is used in scientific literature, "neurotic anxiety" is meant; this ambiguity is one of the reasons it is important to make a clear distinction between the two kinds of anxiety.” -Rollo May (The Meaning of Anxiety)

To prevent falling into the trap of mainstream psychology and pathologizing a necessary element of life, let’s get our terms straight.

What May called “normal anxiety” is the existential or existential-humanistic view of anxiety, the gateway or call to creativity, the potentially constructive and vitalizing force.

What May called “neurotic anxiety” is what most people think of today when they speak of anxiety. Excessive and irrational worry that seemingly has nothing constructive, let alone creative about it.

Now, let’s look at these two kinds of anxiety more closely.

“Normal anxiety is, like any anxiety, a reaction to threats to values the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality…”

From this, we conclude that all anxiety is a reaction to threats to values we hold essential. (We will touch on these values later.)

However, something then creates a distinction between normal and neurotic anxiety.

“…but normal anxiety is that reaction which…”

Okay, so normal anxiety is differentiated by the reaction, not by its content or the source. Let’s see the full statement.

“Normal anxiety is, like any anxiety, a reaction to threats to values the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality, but normal anxiety is that reaction which

(1) is not disproportionate to the objective threat,

(2) does not involve repression or other mechanisms of intrapsychic conflict and,

(3) does not require neurotic defense mechanisms for its management, but can be confronted constructively on the level of conscious awareness or can be relieved if the objective situation is altered.”

In May's framework, normal anxiety involves facing threats proportionately and consciously without resorting to repression or defensive mechanisms. Normal anxiety is a movement forward and through life’s uncertainties and challenges rather than a retreat from them.

Neurotic anxiety, then, is the opposite reaction.

“Neurotic anxiety, on the other hand, is a reaction to threat which is

(1) disproportionate to the objective danger

(2) involves repression (dissociation) and other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and,

(3) is managed by means of various forms of retrenchment of activity and awareness, such as inhibitions, the development of symptoms, and the varied neurotic defense mechanisms.”

Neurotic anxiety is a retreat from life’s uncertainties and challenges through strategies that diminish our lived experience and our potential as human beings.

I’m anticipating two questions to arise out of this:

1. David, this is a lot of philosophy and psychology talk that makes little sense. Can you explain this in a more simple way?

2. How can we know what is proportionate or disproportionate to the objective threat?

Both of these questions would be on point. Let me address the first one with an example.

Anxiety in Everyday Life: A Practical Example

The person in my comments mentioned the anxiety of rejection in relationships or attending meetings. This might seem like “just social anxiety” at first, but its ground is existential.

Being rejected in a relationship or attending a meeting is a threat to the values we hold essential. These situations raise questions like “Will I be judged? Am I adequate? Can I show up as myself and be accepted?” The threat is to our identity, authenticity, and freedom. On a psychological level, losing them can be as real and as intense as the threat of physical death.

That’s why it’s perfectly natural to experience anxiety in these situations. You are aware not just of the threat but of infinite different ways your future might play out depending on how that specific encounter goes. Kierkegaard, the first thinker to ever write about anxiety, said that the more creative the person is, the more anxiety is potentially present. The more you can use your creative capacity to envision different versions of the future, the more you are prone to anxiety.

But it is then our reaction that makes the distinction between normal and neurotic anxiety.

When we experience anxiety about a relationship or social situation, we can approach it as an opportunity for self-creation rather than as something to be avoided.

For example, the anxiety before a meeting might prompt us to prepare thoroughly, reflect on why this opportunity matters to us, or consider how it would look to show up authentically. This conscious engagement transforms anxiety from a paralyzing force into creative energy that propels growth.

Neurotic anxiety, by contrast, would be marked by avoidance through last-minute cancellations or inauthentic behavioral patterns that prevent genuine connection. The distinction lies not in the situation itself but in how we respond to it.

But this raises a crucial question: how do we determine what constitutes a "proportionate" reaction to a threat? The answer is both simple and complex.

The Problem with “Objective” Anxiety

We have already explained that the threats are real and objective, as they represent genuine psychological challenges to our sense of identity, freedom, and authenticity.

But that’s where our pursuit of objectivity stops.

“The definition of neurotic anxiety can be made only when the subjective approach to the problem—i.e., the approach based on the question of what is going on intrapsychically in the individual—is included.”

We recognize disproportionate reactions not through comparison to others but through their consequences: Do our responses lead to growth and engagement or to constriction and avoidance? Does our anxiety mobilize creative action, or does it trigger defensive retreat?

This individualized nature of anxiety interpretation explains why clinical psychology has struggled with the existential-humanistic perspective. As May notes,

"If one were merely to phrase the problem of anxiety objectively... it certainly could justifiably be argued that there is no logical need to distinguish between neurotic and normal anxiety. All one could say is that anxious individuals are less able than other individuals to cope with threats."

How convenient for mainstream psychology and the therapy industry! Rather than exploring the unique contours of each person's relationship with anxiety, standardized approaches place everyone in the same diagnostic category. Anxiety becomes a disorder to be eliminated rather than a signal to be understood.

This standardization misses the transformative potential of anxiety. When we treat all anxiety as pathological, we rob people of the opportunity to discover its creative dimensions. We medicalize a fundamental aspect of human experience instead of supporting people in developing a more constructive relationship with it.

Transforming Our Relationship with Anxiety

In Part 2 of this essay, I'll explore practical approaches to cultivating this healthier relationship with anxiety. I'll discuss how we can develop ourselves into individuals who respond to anxiety's call with creativity rather than retreat, who use its energy as fuel for authentic living rather than allowing it to consume us.

Until then, I invite you to reconsider your own anxiety. What might it be calling you toward? What decision is it asking you to make? How can you continue creating yourself and your life through it? After all, being an authentic and free individual requires you to answer these questions. As May said, paraphrasing Kierkegaard,

“…selfhood depends upon the individual's capacity to confront anxiety and move ahead despite it.”