Rollo May challenges the idea that "mental health is living without worry" because he believes it is necessary to be human. He explores how it alleviates boredom, sharpens sensibilities, and produces the tension necessary to preserve human existence. May sees a connection from anxiety to intelligence, creativity, and originality, and guides the reader away from destructive approaches to positive ways of dealing with anxiety. He convincingly argues that anxiety can cause personal change, since self-awareness only happens through confronting and dealing with it.
Rollo Reese May (1909–1994) was an American existential psychologist and author of the influential book Love and the Will (1969). He is one of the main defenders of humanistic approaches to psychotherapy and is a major American exponent of European existential thinking applied to psychotherapy.
