Topophobia: A Phenomenology of Anxiety

by Dylan Trigg

A Phenomenology of Anxiety is a vivid second-person inquiry into how anxiety plays a formative part in the constitution of subjectivity. While anxiety has assumed a central role in the history of philosophy – and phenomenology in particular – until now there has been no sustained study of how it shapes our sense of self and being in the world. This book seeks to address that lacuna. Calling upon the author’s own experience of being agoraphobic, it asks a series of critical How is our experience of the world affected by our bodily experience of others? What role do moods play in shaping our experience of the world? How can we understand the role of conditions such as agoraphobia in relation to our normative understanding of the body and the environment? What is the relation between anxiety and home? The reader will gain an insight into the strange experience of being unable to cross a bridge, get on a bus, and enter a supermarket without tremendous anxiety. At the same time, they will discover aspects of their own bodily experience that are common to both agoraphobes and non-agoraphobes alike. Integrating phenomenological inquiry with current issues in the philosophy of mind, Trigg arrives at a renewed understanding of identity, which arranges self, other and world as a unified whole. Written with a sense of vividness often lacking in academic discourse, this is living philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Architecture, Nonfiction

254 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2016

Reviews

[Michael A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic phenomenological excursion into the disorienting, terrifying experience of anxiety (more specifically what Trigg terms topophobia, briefly, anxiety dealing with an alienation to spaces [claustrophobia, fear of bridges, and especially agoraphobia]). Trigg draws mostly from Merleau-Pontean phenomenology but synthesizes it with Sartrean and Levinasian phenomenology and uses Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis for good measure. The articulation of the Levinasian idea of the "il y a" was terrifying, and parts of this book read like psychological horror. As a sufferer of moderate to severe anxiety, this book accurately portrays the sheer terror one feels when confronted with it. It seems as though anxiety is a non-localizable fear of the subject dissolving; becoming aware of the separation of our bodies from ourselves and the ultimate contingency of everything (i.e. everything could theoretically collapse at any second). There is an emphasis on the alien and uncanny nature of anxiety and the body, and the conclusion deals with the "dream-like", hypnagogic aspect of anxiety. A terrifyingly enlightening read that I would recommend to anyone who would like a deeper, more "psychological"(phenomenological would be the more accurate word) articulation of anxiety beyond "chemicals in the brain make you feel this way".