The Most Common Form Of Despair

From Part I of The Sickness Unto Death (1849), published under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus. Søren Kierkegaard defines despair (Fortvivlelse) as a fundamental mis-relation of the self to itself — specifically, the failure to be what one actually is. He identifies three forms: not knowing one has a self, not willing to be oneself, and (most deeply) despairing of being oneself. The most widespread form, he argues, is the last: the person who senses their authentic selfhood but refuses to inhabit it, preferring a comfortable social persona. This analysis directly influenced Sigmund Freud's later account of neurosis as the flight from one's own reality.