My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind Hardcover – Deckle Edge, January 7, 2014

Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic, has written a searingly honest book entitled, My Age of Anxiety: Fear, hope, dread, and the search for peace of mind. In it he reveals his own agonized search for relief from panic attacks throughout his life and reviews all the theories of the source of anxiety and the treatments for it. He questions whether it is a medical illness, or a philosophical problem, or a psychological problem, or a spiritual condition or a cultural condition. He decides that anxiety is at once a function of biology and philosophy, body and mind, instinct and reason, personality and culture. It is produced by nature and nurture.Following Kierkegaard he suggests that his anxiety might be just a normal human emotional response to life rather than an illness to be diagnosed and treated. Yet Stossel has endured a lifetime of debilitating panic attacks that are truly terrifying.He describes anxiety as apprehension about future suffering – the fearful anticipation of an unbearable catastrophe one is hopeless to prevent. At the root of all clinical anxiety is some kind of existential crisis about growing old, death, the loss of loved ones, the fear of failure and personal humiliation, the struggle for meaning and purpose, and the need for emotional security.He gives us a history of treatment: psychological counseling and the development of anti-anxiety drugs. He has been taking all the different kinds of drugs for twenty years and believes that anxiety has a biological basis yet he admits that the original underpinnings of biological psychiatry has been unraveling. He quotes studies that indicate that new evidence does not support any of the biochemical theories of mental illness, and that psychiatric drugs can do more harm than good. Only about a third of patients get better on antidepressants.Anxiety may be the truest route to self-discovery. Medicating away that anxiety instead of listening to what it’s trying to tell us – listening to Prozac instead of listening to our anxiety – might not be what’s called for if we want to become our best selves. Anxiety may be a signal that something needs to change – that we need to change our lives. Medication risks blocking that signal. He cites the novels of Walker Percy who came to distrust the reductionist worldview that claimed science as the answer to all human problems. Percy came to believe that the high rates of depression and suicide in modern society were owed in part to the dependence on scientific solutions. By focusing on the biological, he said, psychiatry becomes unable to account for guilt, self-consciousness, sadness, shame, anxiety – these were important signals from the world and from our souls. Medicating these signals away as symptoms of organic disease risks alienating us further from ourselves.Stossel agrees with Walker Percy and Kierkegaard yet he still is dependent on taking multiple doses of these drugs and alcohol as well. He relies on Klonopin, Xanax and scotch and admits that this is not healthy. He is aware that there is a history of anxiety disorders in his family and explores his genetic inheritance. Yet he is not willing to become a victim to genetic factors completely beyond his control. Neither is he going to blame his mother for her over-protection or his father for his alcoholism. The challenge is to manage his anxiety so that it becomes a source of strength.Finally, he cites the work of Denis Charney in studying the resilience of Vietnam POW’s. He developed ten critical psychological elements and characteristics of resilience: optimism, altruism, having a moral compass or set of beliefs that cannot be shattered, faith and spirituality, humor, having a role model, social supports, facing fear (or leaving one’s comfort zone) having a mission or meaning in life, and practice in meeting and overcoming challenges.Stossel does not profess any Christian faith. He admits that he is agnostic as far as God is concerned. His last case study in the book is that of Dr. Samuel Johnson who suffered from depressive anxiety, yet was highly productive and a man of deep faith in Christ and prayer. Johnson realized that his infirmity was part of his inheritance of original sin. He sought to manage it by faith in God, a life of prayer and self-discipline, confession of his sins, and trusting in the salvation of Christ on the Cross. Anxiety is part of our sinfulness that can only be managed by an awareness of our dependence on God our Father, our forgiveness through God the Son, and our empowering by God the Holy Spirit. All the existential questions and descriptions of anxiety Stossel lists find their resolution in the medicine of the soul that is the Gospel of Jesus. Our future need not be feared but lived into with hope and joy because of what Christ has done for us.

This was an interesting read more for the author's remarkable ability to really share his illness in all of its intense reality than just the information he shares. The review of the science/psychology feels like a selective review that can establish any way of examining anxiety as " the correct way" and certainly the ideas have changed over the past 100 years. The answer is likely that biology makes one prone and nurture may be the switch-- likely feeding other brain alterations,seemingly never ending. What makes this book special is feeling the thought of someone who has lived this anxious life and thought hard about these issues leaving the reader with no easy answer but a lot to think about. Thanks.I would have just as well seen the footnotes in the body of the book as they seemed part of the whole and could have been written easily into the narrative.

This is a book for anyone who suffers psychologically. It provides a historical and philosophical overview of mental distress, and the in-fighting that governs treatment decisions and research that might provide relief. Read it and weep, and be comforted.The author is a highly successful author/editor with a personality make-up that would keep most of us in bed 24/7, for years. He is startlingly frank, and brings "Listening to Prozac" (also highly informative for a person with depressive or anxiety disorders) up to date. I've been through the historical mill with these emotional disabilities and the medical/psychiatric community's ever-changing response to them, but compared to Stossel, I've been relatively lucky--deeply unhappy and sometimes completely frozen; unresponsive to the continuously evolving but never very different approaches and medications; and at the mercy of the sometimes brilliant and sometimes abusive professionals I've seen in the past 45+ years.It is critical to understand that these conditions are NOT the patient's fault ("you just don't want to be well"), and that about 30% of patients don't respond to any current treatment. Available medications can cause terrible side effects (we're just beginning to understand that the SSRI/SNRI sexual dysfunction may be permanent for some; "just hang in there, these meds take time to work"; "caution, this medication may increase the potential for suicide"), alone or in combination with an ever-expanding array of off-label adjunctive prescriptions. One of my friends now takes five, and the mix keeps her functioning, but not without economic, social, and emotional costs.A few years ago I was finally diagnosed with GAD, generalized anxiety disorder. It took Stossel's literate, humane, and well-researched book to make me realize my symptoms haven't changed--it's the politics and philosophy of the "helping" professions and the diagnostic manual of psychiatric disorders (DSM) that changed.He provides insightful side-views into genetic/familial roots of psychological conditions, the pharmacological and other influences that govern treatment, some common early symptomatology, and the reality that most of us who fall into this community cope the best we can. He offers no prescriptive assistance, but he shares his own experience compellingly. He's imperfect, and aren't we all.My only real criticism is that the book simply stops. There is no conclusion. I understand why, and perhaps that is the only possible conclusion.

A great book. I suffer from severe anxiety & depression & have for as long as I can remember.i also used to run home from school every day as soon as I got there. I have taken all off the drugs that Mr Stossel has & have lost count of all of the therapists I have seen. my social phobia is so bad that I have never had sex or a girlfriend,I am now 69 years old. There seems to be nothing that can be done. Mr Stossel & I seem very similar except he has a wife & children & I am on my own.........but it was interesting to read about someone so similar.

As an anxiety sufferer, I thought I'd give this book a go. It is a good mix of general facts about the disorder, as well as interesting insight into the authors particular experience of it. It was good to read because a) as I was reading it, I spoke to my husband about what I was reading and I think it helped him to understand it more; and b) I realised how mildly I suffer with anxiety compared to people written about in the book. Good for a sufferer, the general reader interested in understanding mental health issues, and particularly for the friends and relatives of people with anxiety issues, to help them understand their loved one better.

Brilliant insight into theories behind anxiety, is it genetic, what contribution does attachment theory have, history of medication. This is not a self help guide on how to manage anxiety but helps to put this debilitating condition into context and I found this very reasuring. Scott Stossel gives a courageous account of his lifelong battle with anxiety and at the same time inject some humour.

An personal self obsessed account of a mans experience with anxiety. I couldn’t align with it at all and found it self indulgent and repetitive.

I smiled through much of this enlightening book - because I recognise much of the anxiety described, and the tortuous journey that Scott has been on. This is an important piece of work. Which of us would have guessed we were in such illustrious company? And that there is such a positive side to our anxiety? Do